Our research

This research cluster is developing improved methods of cultivation, with nutrient recovery, low carbon agriculture, soil conservation and planting regimes, to enable long-term sustainability, achieving net zero-carbon, and healthier food.

The focus of our research into livestock is to provide scientific support for welfare and animal health improvement and to provide robust welfare outcome methodologies that can be used in a commercial context.

This research cluster considers food supply as a subset of wider food systems. The collective research activity is considering food supply as a socio-economic and a socio-technical system which inform food safety, food supply and the moral framing and behaviours in supply chains.

The cluster’s research focuses on the relationship between equine behavioural neuroscience, gastric health and dietary manipulation of stabled performance horses, and makes a significant contribution to horse welfare.

Researchers at the RAU understand that land and landscape are a dynamic entity, the product of millennia of human curation, in the countryside and small rural towns. The rural economy includes industries traditionally associated with rural areas, such as agriculture, forestry and sectors such as creative industries, technology orientation across businesses and the service industry.

Based at the newly established RAU Swindon, this research cluster is examining the historic environment.

These documents list peer reviewed research papers, books, conference presentations, research and consultancy reports and details of our PhD students, including those graduating each year.

NICRE’s aims are to develop and discover the possibilities of the UK’s rural enterprises.

In a two-year study, a team led by the RAU is asking what farmers think of cultured meat, then modelling how real farm businesses might fare if it becomes part of our diets.