| Lancaster Environment Centre | |
| Established: | 2007 |
| Parent: | Lancaster University (Faculty of Science and Technology) |
| Type: | Science centre |
| Website: | http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/ |
| Head: | Prof. Kirk Semple |
| Head Label: | Director |
| Campus: | Semi-rural |
| Address: | Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK |
The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) in Lancaster, England, is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching, research and collaboration at Lancaster University, founded in 2007.[1]
LEC's facilities were a joint investment eventually costing over £35 million by NERC / UKCEH and Lancaster University. There are UKCEH and Lancaster University laboratories, developed partly by a new extension to Lancaster University's former Biological and Environmental Sciences building and partly by extensive refurbishment of areas of the existing laboratories. Research activities span both organisations. There are extensive research laboratories, fifteen glasshouses and ten walk-in controlled environment rooms. These include high-grade containment facilities for research with genetically modified organisms and radionuclides.[2]
On 22 May 2007,[3] the Gordon Manley Building (LEC III) was opened by Lord Rees of Ludlow Kt. The £8.4m building provides new office, laboratory and meeting-room space for geographers and environmental scientists. It also provides offices, meeting and training rooms for LEC's Enterprise & Business Partnerships Team and offices for companies wishing to locate into LEC or to co-locate new activities.
In addition to the main site is a 1000m² prefabricated building at the northern end of campus, which houses environmental engineering and instrumentation workshops and large-scale sample preparation facilities for UKCEH. There is a weather station and several field stations around the world.[4]
Several interdisciplinary grand research challenges provide a focus for LEC's fundamental and applied research:[5]
Specific interdisciplinary research groups were reorganised in 2016:[5]
These provide a range of research interests within the Lancaster Environment Centre and are post-disciplinary. A Graduate School of the Environment was launched in 2016, to provide a focus for Masters and PhD students, in partnership with UKCEH and Rothamsted Research.
In addition to this research endeavour, the LEC researchers collaborate through a number of research centres to provide a specific strategic research focus on particular areas of current concern. These undertake blue skies research and provide a strategic focus for LEC's collaborative work with science users, including policymakers and industry.
The Centre is currently targeting the development of self-managing heterogeneous infrastructures for data gathering and analysis at a wide range of temporal and spatial scales for both science and industry. This experimental research is motivated by the need to characterise and model the non-linear interdependencies between dynamic natural processes and enable improved prediction of the impacts of factors such as climate change and changes in land-use.[6]
The Centre for Global Eco-Innovation supports the development of new products and services with environmental benefits.[7]
The Pentland Centre is a joint research centre with Lancaster University Management School delivering research on sustainability in business.[8] Led by Prof. Jan Bebbington and formerly, Prof. Gail Whiteman.
The purpose of the business incubation centre within LEC is to allow environmental business to rent office space within the centre, enabling faster business growth through finding easier access to LEC research, knowledge, laboratories, clean rooms, workshops and specialist instruments.[9]