The Critical Environmental Governance group at the University of York is a dynamic, interdisciplinary group tackling urgent global challenges at the intersection of environment, development, and justice.
Our work, in collaboration with communities, examines how power, politics, and values influence responses to environmental change, disaster risk, and infrastructure development. Our research spans human and non-human relationships, from water and trees to land, agriculture and urban resilience, blending social sciences, environmental studies, and applied practice.
Rooted in collaboration, we create space for dialogue, learning, and action across disciplines and with communities and other stakeholders to support more just, inclusive, and sustainable futures.
Our research agenda is applied and problem based, drawing from a diverse range of theoretical and methodological perspectives:
We work through critical approaches and frameworks including those drawn from political ecology, poststructuralism (with an emphasis on discourse and narrative), postcolonial and post-development studies, radical democracy, and science and technology studies (STS).
We apply these approaches to questions of climate change adaptation, social-ecological system change and urban planning, using methods that support critical and reflexive engagement at multiple scales, including participatory action research, coproduction, and social learning.
These topics are representative of research interests among our staff and students, and many of us work across multiple topics. As a result, this list is by no means exhaustive – please contact our Research Grouping Coordinator Jon Ensor if you would like to learn more about our work!
The CEG group values plurality and is committed to the class, gender, racial, and sexual diversity of all its staff and students.
Feature / Urban Labor-a-tree, a new game, helps people to imagine urban trees by creating an inclusive city treescape.
Perspective / In this op-ed, SEI's Robert Farnan and Jonathan Ensor reflect on the relationship between clinicians and patients in the development of healthcare technology.
Feature / This International Day of Forests, SEI shares four insights into how forests support food security, climate resilience and sustainable cities.
Feature / The Branching Out project connected researchers, policymakers and communities to integrate the social and cultural value of UK city treescapes into planning.
Journal article / Economic valuations of trees must take account of their social and cultural values if they are to accurately reflect the financial benefits of treescapes.
Journal article / This study promotes equitable technology development by combining social and technical factors, as shown through a community water monitoring.
Journal article / Researchers have developed a surveillance map for emerald ash borer beetles in Great Britain, with potential applications for both governments and stakeholders.
Journal article / Researchers developed a method for quantifying the social and cultural values of treescapes, creating a composite measure which can be used by policymakers.
Journal article / Struggles for equality and rights are bound up in urban participatory planning. This complicates dynamics of co-production and political subjectivisation.
Journal article / This paper argues for a greater focus on legal culture in climate change adaptation research and develops an agenda to enrich future work in the field.
Project / Does granting rivers legal rights help people and nature? This study analyzes the Atrato, Whanganui, and Turag rivers to find fair, effective governance.
Project / Co-developing water monitoring technologies with Yorkshire fishers to tackle environmental injustices, integrating their expertise into marine governance.
Project / The project works with partners in Africa on solar electricity for off-grid communities.
Project / Novel methods to map the social and cultural value of trees to inform policy decisions regarding urban treescapes.
Project / YESI Fellows collaborate on interdisciplinary environmental science. 2025 Fellow Joanne Morris, at SEI, leads a treescape project.
Project / Including marginalized groups in development and disaster risk planning in Nepal and Thailand.
Project / Surveillance and Management of multiple Risks to Treescapes: Integrating Epidemiology and Stakeholder behaviour.
Project / Delivering Enhanced Biodiversity Information with Adaptive Citizen Science and Intelligent Digital Engagements
