Dr Duncan Depledge, Senior Lecturer in Geopolitics & Security at Loughborough University, has been invited to join the UK Government's first Climate and Nature Security Taskforce. His role will help to inform understanding of the security implications of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Duncan’s research focuses on what living in an era of climate change means for how we think about security, defence and war. He was the recipient of an ESRC New Investigator Grant for a project titled ‘Net Zero Militaries (NETZMIL): Retaining Operational Effectiveness in a Low-Carbon World (2023-2025)’, which produced a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the UK Ministry of Defence as it attempts to navigate unprecedented changes in the global climate and energy landscape. Currently, he is a Co-Investigator on another ESRC-funded project titled ‘Critically Green: Tracing the geographical, social and environmental footprint of military decarbonisation’, a project examining the geopolitical, social and environmental impacts of growing military demand for critical minerals.
Alongside Duncan’s appointment, Dr Francisco Azpitarte has been awarded a prestigious UK Research and Innovation Policy Fellowship, hosted by the Department for Economy (DfE), to work with policymakers in Northern Ireland, strengthening the use of evidence in special educational needs (SEN) policy and practice.
Fran’s research focuses on investigating children and young people’s development and evaluating the role of social policies, socioeconomic environments, and institutions influencing that development. Since 2017, Fran has served as core investigator for the Australian Research Council funded Changing Children’s Chances project, where he contributes his expertise with quantitative analysis and causal inference methods and Australian large-scale administrative and survey datasets.
In 2019, his research evaluating the causal impact of childcare attendance on school readiness and achievement gaps among Indigenous Australian children was awarded the Best Paper Prize by the Economic Society of Australia. More recently, the British Educational Research Journal’s 2024 Editors’ Choice Award commended his work with Prof Louise Holt (Geography, LU) on the spatial and temporal trends in the educational outcomes of children with special educational needs and disabilities and the inequalities between local authorities in England.
Duncan, speaking on his new role, said:
"The climate crisis is one of the defining security challenges of the twenty-first century. I'm privileged to be part of this task force and look forward to contributing to its work to help ensure the UK is better prepared for the complex security risks that climate change will bring in the years ahead."
Commenting on his recent appointment, Fran said:
“Children and young people with identified special educational needs (SEN) are among the most vulnerable groups in the UK and internationally. I am very pleased to have been awarded this fellowship with the DfE, which will use linked administrative data to better understand educational inequalities and young people’s transitions into further study and the labour market. I look forward to contributing evidence that can help shape more equitable and effective education policy across the UK.”
Together, these achievements highlight the breadth of policy-relevant research across the University's social sciences, with Loughborough expertise helping to address major contemporary challenges in both environmental security and education policy.