Durham is home to world-leading research that helps to address the challenges of an ever-changing and complex world – and inspires the next generation of problem-solvers. 

Geographer Dr Caroline Clason has played a key role in a major new international report highlighting the accelerating decline of the world’s glaciers and ice sheets.

Durham University will be hosting an official UNFCCC Side Event at COP30, in Belém, Brazil. We are proud to continue our tradition of hosting events at conferences of the parties (COPs), and we are committed to maintaining active engagment with the UNFCCC processes as an observer NGO.

Professor Elisa Morgera shared her insights with the BBC News on how the COP30 is a crucial multilateral conference to address climate change crisis.

Professor Edith Hall, from our department of Classics and Ancient History, has been awarded the 2024 International Hellenic Prize for her acclaimed book Facing Down the Furies.

On 17th of October, at the third Committee, 19th plenary meeting - General Assembly, 80th session, Professor Elisa Morgera, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, presented a report on: 'Human Rights-based Approach to the Energy Transition'

Our scientists are investigating how a UK-led team could design and build a core instrument for a flagship NASA mission to search for life on distant planets.

On the 13th of October, the annual Forum on Comparative and European Energy Law (FCEEL) at the University of Düsseldorf discussed the Legitimacy of rights-based climate change adjudication.

Professor Justin Willis, in our Department of History, joins fellow researchers in looking at the life of prominent Kenyan politician Raila Amollo Odinga following his death. They say Odinga’s “absence will generate a political vacuum that other leaders will struggle to fill”.

On 13 October 2025, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Professor Elisa Morgera, participated in the opening of the fifth session of the UN Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Geneva.

During a recent visit, Professor Clive Roberts, Executive Dean (Science), met with Japanese partners to develop research collaborations in clean energy, quantum physics, smart grids and bioengineering.

On the 9th and 10th October 2025, Durham University’s Centre for Sustainable Development Law and Policy (CSDLP), in collaboration with the European Center of Just Transition Research and Impact-Driven Transfer (JTC) at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, hosted the Second Annual International Conference on “Just Transitions to a Net Zero World” at the historic Redhills Durham Miners Hall.