Glensaugh – about us
Decades of research and monitoring:
Glensaugh has a fantastic collection of historical baseline data and scientific observation spanning many decades, which is ideal for underpinning research and demonstration of the scale and nature of transformation needed in farming.
Displaying the significant contribution that the sector can make towards the Government’s climate and biodiversity targets.
Glensaugh is also a national monitoring centre for the Environmental Change Network (ECN), Cosmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System UK (COSMOS-UK), and the Defra Acid deposition (UKEAP) network. It is also an Ecological Continuity Trust LTE/LTM Hub and a BIOSCAN-UK project site.
Long-term research platforms like Glensaugh are fantastic places to conduct long-run, whole-farm experiments including those which for a private farmer could be high-risk – as a research farm we can test and demonstrate transformative ways of managing our uplands, underpinned by rigorous science.
Tackling the climate and biodiversity crises with transformative farming and technological innovations
Climate-Positive Farming Management Team
Teaching and demonstrating
Teaching is an important and integral activity for the institute and its research farms, and forms an important element of our work at Glensaugh. Our research findings combined with on-farm demonstrations give powerful opportunities to provide independent, objective advice on synergies and trade-offs, and the cultural, structural and technological opportunities and barriers which can emerge during transition towards climate-positive farming.
On-farm visits can be actual and virtual – with new techniques in visualisation (e.g. Virtual Reality videos) developed by our institute’s scientists. Have a look at our Virtual Farm pages for examples of what we have developed thus far.
The farm is already being used by various colleges and universities (photo courtesy of SRUC) for training and research and, reflecting our commitment to the open science agenda, is also available for other Institutions for research or educational purposes. In addition to the outdoor research facilities, Glensaugh has flexible indoor spaces with meeting rooms, computing facilities, kitchen, laboratories, ovens, freezers, cold stores and more.
Responding to climate and biodiversity crises
Reports published in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) gave hard-hitting messages about the urgent need for changes in land use and management if we are to avoid worst-case climate change scenarios and irreversible biodiversity losses.
Farms have a major role to play in making transformative changes to address these challenges – at Glensaugh we are exploring how this can be done.
At Glensaugh we are exploring technological and agro-ecological design and management for a low-carbon economy and a new way of farming, based on an integrated land use approach with multiple benefits for nature and sustainable livelihoods for people.
We have several research projects associated with this facility, including the UKRI-funded FARM TREE project in collaboration with Aberdeen University, which is part of the Future of UK Treescapes Programme.
Our Partners and Funders
We are delighted to be partnering with Baillie Gifford which is funding our Entrepreneurial Research Fellow, Prof Alison Hester, who heads up our Climate-Positive Farming Initiative. This is an exciting new partnership for us and also brings us new relationships and contacts in sectors that environment and land use research establishments have traditionally been less well connected with.
A wide range of research funded by the Scottish Government funded Strategic Research Programme supports the transformation pathway for the farm, with associated involvement of other SEFARI Institutes.
We have also received generous support and funding from the Macaulay Development Trust for a range of activities supporting our climate-positive farming initiative. We have been and continue to be supported by a wide range of other funders whose support is much appreciated and is individually recognised against the specific projects that they have funded/co-funded.
We are also actively engaging with many other organisations and networks as we take forward our Climate-Positive Farming Initiative, including Water to Water, Forest and Land Scotland, Scottish Forestry, Forest Research, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Scotland’s Moorland Forum, NFUS, SAOS, Nature Friendly Farming Network, LEAF and other farm/land management stakeholder groups.
A key aim is ensuring that data and evidence from the project supports the aim of a Just Transition for a sector facing massive challenges into the future. There is much potential for creative collaborations in this critically important area and our ambition is to make the most of such opportunities to share learning, create joint events and other outputs as relevant.
Project lead:
Alison Hester
Senior Scientist and Baillie Gifford Entrepreneurial Research Fellow
Based in Aberdeen
T: +44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)
Professor Alison Hester FRSB FRSGS is a senior scientist and Baillie Gifford Entrepreneurial Research Fellow at the James Hutton Institute, UK. She did her Degree at King’s College University of London, PhD at Aberdeen University/CEH and a Royal Society Postdoctoral Fellowship at CSIRO Western Australia. Alison has over 30 years research experience (with c200 scientific publications and contract reports) and an international reputation in biodiversity, conservation and land management. Much of her research forms an integral part of large, interdisciplinary projects and she works closely with scientists, land managers, communities and policy-makers in different parts of the world. In recent years she has taken a lead role in bringing together and managing diverse teams of scientists in the highly interdisciplinary research area of natural capital and Ecosystem Services, both within the institute and through a range of international collaborations.
