Social anthropologist Professor Simone Abram has been announced as the new Durham University Ørsted Chair of Green Energy Systems and Director of Durham Energy Institute (DEI). She is the first social scientist to lead the DEI.

We’ve joined a pioneering new three-year pilot to monitor the UK’s hedgehogs and try to reverse the fall in their numbers.

An ingenious new camera collar has offered researchers from our Anthropology department an unprecedented glimpse into the secret lives of wild baboons in South Africa.

We have launched a new Global Research Brochure where we shine a light on some of our incredible researchers who are making a difference in the world.

The shift from dense forests to open plains in Africa may have caused our ancient ancestors to change their vocal calls, research involving our anthropologists has found.

Giuseppe Amatulli, is an Honorary Fellow of the Department of Anthropology and a post-doctoral fellow at Carleton University, Ottawa. Here he discusses the potential benefits of an Action Plan, recently approved by the Canadian Federal Government, to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Leading infant sleep expert Professor Helen Ball, from Durham’s Infancy and Sleep Centre, has published a report and new research calling for a multi-agency approach for the prevention of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI).

Professor Helen Ball from Durham’s Infancy and Sleep Centre has played an intrinsic role in the research around sudden infant death and safer sleep conditions and environments for babies and infants. Here Helen shares why a multi-agency approach by Local Authorities, Early Years and family-facing services, is needed in ensuring all ‘Eyes on the Baby’.

Meet Brek, Kiki de Mpacka, Vue de Loin and Kento – four rescued mandrills who were released back into the wild as part of a project led by our anthropologists.

On the United Nations World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, which is on May 21, Professor Rachel Kendal from our Anthropology Department and Dr Sheina Lew-Levy from our Psychology Department explore the cultural diversity of indigenous hunter-gatherer communities. They discuss the communities’ right to safeguard their ancestral knowledge, the importance of that knowledge for UN global sustainable development goals, and the threat that current formal education poses.

Dr Ben Campbell from our Anthropology Department explores increasing concern about climate change and the melting of the Earth’s North and South Poles, but challenges us to consider the so-called Third Pole, the Himalaya-Karakoram mountains, and look beyond climate change as a matter of technical solutions to re-thinking our relationship with the planet.

To mark Sleep Safer Week, we caught up with infant sleep expert Professor Helen Ball who leads our award-winning Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre.