The University of Plymouth and Kew Reach Ltd sign a Memorandum of Understanding
Updated: 50 minutes ago
This partnership will underpin a range of research and training activities.
The University of Plymouth and Kew Reach Ltd have agreed to collaborate on a range of projects helping communities and businesses across the world respond to accelerating changes in our global environment.
The two organisations each have extensive experience of using science and innovation to tackle many of the biggest challenges facing the planet and society.
Thanks to a new Memorandum of Understanding, they will now use their shared expertise to explore and promote new avenues of co-operation. The collaboration will be centred around large scale restoration ecology, biodiversity gain, regenerative agriculture, urban ecosystems, and horticulture.
It will explore how advances in autonomy and environmental intelligence, and the greater understanding they generate, will lead to effective management and restoration of ecosystem services and landscapes.
The partners, both recognising the need to build national capacity in the environment, will also work together to enrich the experience of students in Plymouth and deliver improvements in training and capacity at Kew Reach, in particular bringing the business of ecological restoration into the academic syllabus.
The University’s work on the partnership is being driven through its Faculty of Science and Engineering and Centre of Research excellence in Intelligent and Sustainable Productive Systems (CRISPS), which between them deliver a range of impact research and teaching in biology, conservation, and marine and environmental science.
Professor Richard Preziosi, Director of CRISPS, said: “Kew is a name known all over the world and we’re delighted that Kew Reach want to form closer links with us here in Plymouth. We are both advancing understanding and awareness of changes in our climate, and the impacts those changes are having in our local communities and all over the world. By strengthening our partnership, my hope is to create new opportunities for our staff to work on exciting research projects, and for our students to engage in projects and placements that can make a genuine difference to people and the planet.”
Kew Reach Ltd was founded as a commercial company to respond to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, and created as a science-driven partnership between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Greensphere Capital.
Mark Chadwick, CEO of Kew Reach said: “Kew Reach is delighted to be working with the University of Plymouth. We share a belief that good science underpins efforts to restore nature and combat climate chaos, in turn, these efforts will make a real difference to businesses and communities, and to the ecosystems that support them. I am confident that our teams will achieve important innovations over the next few years.”
The new collaboration will run for an initial period of three years, during which the partners will work to identify and explore joint research and funding opportunities.
One of its first initiatives will be when a team from Plymouth participates in an innovation showcase being held as part of the Kew Reach Solutions Summit this October.
ENDS
About the University of Plymouth
Plymouth is an ambitious modern and award-winning university, recently named the Community University of the Year for 2027*. We pride ourselves on providing outstanding opportunities and experiences for our students and staff, while all our activities and partnerships are designed to deliver positive impacts for communities, people and the planet.
Awarded triple gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, the University is home to the largest cohort of marine science students in the UK, and is the largest provider of healthcare training in the South West of England. Around 18,000 students from over 130 countries study with us in Plymouth, while thousands more are pursuing our degrees at partner colleges worldwide. When they graduate, they join a global community of around 200,000 alumni.
Our world-leading researchers were the first in the world to highlight the growing threat of plastic pollution, while we have developed approaches and treatments for a range of health conditions, are driving innovations designed to protect national security, and are fostering the sustainable use of everything from food to clean energy.
About Kew Reach
Kew Reach is an ecological and biodiversity advisory practice formed as a joint venture with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Greensphere Capital. The practice applies Kew's botanical science to the decisions that shape land and the built environment, organised around three areas of focus: urban, infrastructure, and landscape.
Its advisory work spans species selection for a changing climate, biodiversity assessment and net gain, seed sourcing and quality assurance, genetic resource management, and horticultural standards. Kew Reach works with developers, engineering, environmental and design consultancies, infrastructure owners, restoration programmes, and national and municipal governments.
Kew Reach develops Palette, a plant selection tool for urban landscapes that draws on the science of Kew to inform tree species selection for schemes that are ecologically functional and climate resilient.
* Daily Mail University Guide 2027.
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