AGILE Initiative

The Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School aims to revolutionise how world-class, high-impact research supports environmental policymaking.

For governments to make sound decisions about the environment, policymaking must be informed by the very best research. Yet science does not always seek to answer the same questions directly facing policymakers, nor does it move at the speed with which policy decisions need to be made.

Established with a major £10 million grant from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Agile Initiative is an ambitious effort to meet this challenge by responding to specific environmental policy questions with fast-paced research ‘Sprints’. In these Sprints, Oxford's world-leading academics and partners work together to feed evidence and science-led solutions into the policy cycle in real-time.

The first five Sprints have been chosen for their socioeconomic and environmental importance to policy, potential impact, time-scale deliverability, and inclusiveness and diversity. Other Sprints will be launched during the five-year programme with topics to be identified in collaboration with decision-makers in government, business and NGOs – all focussed on environmental issues.