This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Formation | 2008 |
---|---|
Founder | Sir Martin and Lady Smith |
Purpose | Education and Research |
Location |
|
Director | Professor Mette Morsing |
Parent organization | University of Oxford |
Website | www |
The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (also known as the Oxford Smith School) is an interdisciplinary research centre of the University of Oxford that focuses on teaching research, and engagement with businesses and enterprises for long term environmental sustainability. The Oxford Smith School was established with the vision of a net-zero emissions future alongside achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, supported by a sustainable global economic and financial system. The school has a broad profile of research, teaching, enterprise engagement, and partnerships to support this vision.
The Smith School is part of the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Much of the Oxford Smith School’s work is multi-disciplinary and draws on a wide range of collaborators across Oxford University. Several academic staff hold joint appointments or are affiliated with other parts of the university including the School of Geography and Environment, the Saïd Business School, the Institute of New Economic Thinking, the Department of Biology, the Department of Economics, the Faculty of Law, and the Oxford Martin School.
The Oxford Smith School was founded through a benefaction from the Smith Family Educational Foundation and officially opened in 2008. [1] From 2008 to 2012, Professor Sir David King, the then outgoing Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the Government Office for Science, served as the founding director of the Smith School, followed by Professor Gordon Clark from January 2013 to October 2018, a pioneer of research showing how sustainability can drive financial outperformance, [2] and Professor of climate economics Cameron Hepburn from October 2018 – October 2023. The current director is Professor Mette Morsing , formerly of the UN Global Compact – the world's largest corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiative.
The Smith School conducts research in various disciplines including finance, enterprise, economics, and law, with a collective focus on thinking about public and private sector decision-making and sustainable development. Particular research focuses within these disciplines include biodiversity, climate, energy, food, regenerative economy, and water.
A critical contribution of the Oxford Smith School has been to frame the narrative of climate change and environmental concerns into the language of risk for enterprises and governments. Concepts such as stranded assets developed by Dr Ben Caldecott help make these risks concrete and guide sustainable finance and climate-aware decision-making across public and private sector entities.
The School led the development of the Oxford Offsetting Principles, which are considered industry gold-standard [3] and contributes to global understanding of net zero, the clean energy transition, [4] and sustainable cooling. [5]
During the Covid-19 crisis the Smith School engaged heavily with topics of Green Economic Recovery, co-leading the Oxford University Economic Recovery Project which has engaged over 20 governments and international institutions such as the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme. [6]
The School’s Sustainable Law Programme has been engaged by leading environmental lawsuits such as Lliuya v RWE AG to test legal responses to climate change.
Since 2015, the REACH programme has been working with government, UNICEF, academic institutions, private sector and civil society partners to improve water security for 10 million people in Africa and Asia [7] .
The Smith School offers a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of Geography and the Environment, which was the highest-ranked Geography department in the world in 2023 by QS World University Rankings [8] and Times Higher Education. [9] Its MSc course in Sustainability, Enterprise, and Environment was one of the most applied-to graduate course at the University of Oxford in 2021. [10] The School also offers executive education programs across online and in-person formats on a variety of topics relevant to sustainability leadership and the net-zero transition.
The Smith School hosts the annual ‘Oxford World Forum’, which brings together leaders, entrepreneurs, and civil society representatives to explore pathways for climate action. Previous speakers include Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohamed Nasheed, Ellen MacArthur, Al Gore, and Steven Chu.
Academics at the Smith School include Cameron Hepburn, Ben Caldecott, Doyne Farmer, Radhika Khosla, and Sam Fankhauser.
The Smith School runs ‘Business Fellows’ and ‘Advisory Board’ programmes which bring together leading thinkers from the business world who are helping to shape their company and industry response to the challenges of achieving net zero emissions and sustainable development goals. Past and present members include:
Jadavpur University is a public state funded research and technology university with its main campus located at Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established in 1906 as Bengal Technical Institute and was converted into Jadavpur University in 1955. As of 2023 NIRF rankings, Jadavpur University has been ranked 4th among universities, 10th among engineering institutes, and 13th overall in India. The university has been recognized by UGC as an institute with Potential for Excellence.
The University of Sussex is a public research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the South Downs National Park, and provides convenient access to central Brighton 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) away. The university received its royal charter in August 1961, the first of the plate glass university generation.
Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. The University was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith University is credited with introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian Studies. The university has five campuses, in Gold Coast, Nathan, Logan, South Bank, and Mount Gravatt. The university was named after Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, who was twice Premier of Queensland and the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. Sir Samuel Griffith played a major role in the Federation of Australia and was the principal author of the Australian constitution.
Tokyo Institute of Technology is a national research university located in Greater Tokyo Area, Japan. Tokyo Tech is the largest institution for higher education in Japan dedicated to science and technology, one of first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of Top Global University Project by the Japanese government.
Oxford Brookes University is a public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The university was named after its first principal, John Henry Brookes, who played a major role in the development of the institution.
The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 1926 by royal charter from King George V and was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars. The university is usually categorised as a red brick university, reflecting its original foundation in the 19th century.
The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research, combining social and computer science to explore information, communication, and technology. It is an integral part of the University of Oxford's Social Sciences Division in England.
Imperial College Business School, a division of Imperial College London in London, United Kingdom, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. The school's courses cultivate innovative thinking and responsible leadership, preparing its students to drive global impact.
Myles Robert Allen is an English climate scientist. He is Professor of Geosystem Science in the University of Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment, and head of the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department.
Alliance Manchester Business School is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and executives.
Kyung Hee University is a private research university in South Korea with campuses in Seoul and Suwon. It was founded in 1949. Kyung Hee University is part of the Kyung Hee University System, which offers comprehensive education from kindergarten through graduate school.
Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) is the business school of Lancaster University in Lancaster, England. The school's history can be traced back to the establishment of departments of marketing and of operational research at the university's foundation in 1964. These and other related departments were organised into the "School of Business and Organizational Studies" in 1969. A full range of subjects are taught, ranging from undergraduate degrees to postgraduate degrees, including executive and full-time MBAs, PhDs and post-experience executive education.
The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) in Lancaster, England, is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching, research and collaboration at Lancaster University, founded in 2007.
The Oxford School of Architecture was founded in 1927. Forming part of the Oxford City Technical School, this became the Oxford College of Technology in 1956, the Oxford Polytechnic in 1970 and Oxford Brookes University in 1992. Now called the School of Architecture in the Faculty of Technology, Design & the Environment, it is one of the largest architecture schools in the UK, with around 300 students and 70 staff. The school has become one of the most competitive architecture schools, ranking in the top 50 Architecture schools in the world in the 2015 QS World University Rankings.
The QS World University Rankings is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE) magazine as Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings, inaugurated in 2004 to provide an independent source of comparative data about university performance. In 2009, the two organizations parted ways to produce independent university rankings, the QS World University Rankings and THE World University Rankings.
O.P. Jindal Global is a private Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University located at Sonipat in Haryana, India. It was established in 2009 as a philanthropic initiative of its founding chancellor, Naveen Jindal, in memory of his father, O.P. Jindal. In 2020, UGC named JGU as an Institute of Eminence, making it one of the four private universities and one of the twelve of all universities in India to have ever received the distinction. The university offers 45 programmes in law, liberal arts, life sciences and business.
Janelle Knox-Hayes is the Lister Brothers Associate Professor of Economic Geography in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research and teaching explore the institutional nature of social, economic and environmental systems, and the ways in which these are impacted by changing socio-economic spatial and temporal dynamics.
The School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) is a department of the University of Oxford in England, which is part of the university's Social Sciences Division. It is located in the Oxford University Centre for the Environment on South Parks Road, in central Oxford.
Tim O'Riordan OBE DL FBA is a British geographer who is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a prominent British environmental writer and thinker.
Cameron Hepburn is the former Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, the Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Oxford, and formerly a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also the Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.