What is Nature+?

Nature +, The Trinity Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainable Nature-based solutions is a multidisciplinary team of researchers based in Trinity College Dublin that makes discoveries about the natural world and human interactions with nature, and develops solutions for quantifying and sustainably managing natural capital.

Human health and wellbeing depend on functional ecosystems, geosystems and atmospheric systems, and the services they provide.

They can be thought of as our natural capital: the world’s stocks of living and nonliving resources including air, soils, water, plants, microbes and animals.

This natural capital directly or indirectly drives economic activity, but is also impacted by it. The Nature + group works across disciplines and multiple stakeholders including Businesses, Community groups and Local Authorities, to design future-proof solutions for sustainable provision of ecosystem goods and services that underpin health, wellbeing and economic activity.

Our Vision

A world where Natural Capital stocks with multiple benefits for the economy, society and businesses are valued, used sustainably, renewed and restored.

We find new solutions to gain and manage sustainable benefits from nature.

Mission

We find new solutions to gain and manage sustainable benefits from nature. We undertake research into the discovery, valuation, sustainable use and renewal of Natural Capital underlying ecosystem service supply and benefits. We investigate how natural, social, technological, built and financial capital combine to provide these benefits. We research new tools and build the knowledge base for sustainable resource use in the circular economy and bioeconomy.

Drivers

Climate change
Human Population Pressure
Rising Population
Economic Transition Policies
Industrial strategies

Challenges

Resource Depletion & Limitation
Increase in Natural Hazards
Public Health and Wellbeing
Equitable Socio-Economic Transition

Solutions

Sustainable Bioeconomy and Circular Economy
Use Natural solutions for Natural hazards
Improve Health & Wellbeing
Education & Innovation

Interdisciplinary and Needs Focused

Diverse, robust and stable stocks of natural capital provide goods and services fundamental to production, environmental regulation and human well-being. Climate change and habitat loss and degradation disrupt the flow of these services and ultimately threaten enterprises and livelihoods.

Current natural resource exploitation practices are obsolete, inefficient and un-sustainable

We need to move beyond existing solutions and interventions to mitigate risks from the environment and to the services provided by nature. New nature-based solutions offer opportunities for technological developments to alter and optimise the provision of services. Tackling challenges requires an interdisciplinary approach, integrating social, economic, political and bio-geo-chemical systems.

Why Trinity?

Founded in 1592, Trinity College Dublin is the number one university in Ireland and ranked 108th in the world for the quality of its teaching and research. Trinity is Ireland’s most innovative university (Reuters Most Innovative European Universities 2019) and it is 1st in Europe for producing entrepreneurs for the 5th year in a row (Pitchbook Universities Report 2019).

Researchers in the School of Natural Sciences have received national and international recognition for their work, with €9.07 million of funding secured from European Commission research programmes since 2015, over €23.3 million from national funders, and €8.1 million from industrial sources. Natural Sciences researchers contribute to SFI Research Centres MaREI, iCRAG and BiOrbic and are members of European and global research collaborations.

Collaboration & Support

Trinity has a strong record of successful collaboration with both global and local industry partners. Our dedicated Business Engagement Team have the experience and networks necessary to build project teams from across the entire breath of our University, delivering over 100 major research and development projects for clients each year.

Our graduates and post-graduates have been recognised among the very best Entrepreneurs in Europe for 6 successive years.

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