Research to Empower and Inspire

A sustainable university

We are focused on sustainable development and actively contributing to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the QS World University Rankings for Sustainability 2024, we ranked 19th globally. Our sustainability research excels in areas including energy systems, hydrogen development and exploration, carbon capture and storage and environmental justice.  

Discover our strengths

We nurture world-leading and world-changing scientific research across fields including surface chemistry, plant and soil science, hazard and risk, including natural hazards and infrastructure, and physics – including computational cosmology and particle physics.  

We are dedicated to pursuing social justice, undertaking fearless research that leads to policy and societal change and reform. In social sciences and health, we have leading voices in the investigation of violence and abuse, climatology and urban sustainability, anthropology, where we span social, evolutionary and health anthropology, and archaeology, including the protection of heritage in the face of humanitarian or environmental crisis.  

Arts and Humanities at Durham, which is among the top 50 in the world, is characterised by a commitment to global reach and historic depth, combining tradition and innovation, to yield outstanding success across our departments. From classics to contemporary literature, from African history to Iberian and Latin American art, from Chinese culture to Catholic studies, from medieval libraries to machine learning and artificial intelligence, our transformative approach incorporates medical, digital and environmental humanities, and path-breaking research in culture, creativity and heritage. 

We are at the heart of Durham’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, a place of learning for over a thousand years, and internationally significant libraries and collections, with one of the world’s largest and most diverse concentrations of medieval and early modern studies, and joined up, connected research makes our home a laboratory for global heritage. 

We are an international triple accredited business school, and one of the longest established in the UK. Our business scholars are changing how we understand leadership, accountability, sustainability, supply chains, financial inclusion, financial technologies, banking, economic theory and environmental economics.