About Equator

The Equator Project creates evidence-based interventions to improve race equity in postgraduate environmental research. These include Research Schools, Mentoring Networks, and advocacy addressing barriers to access.

Equator interventions increase access and participation, improve research careers perceptions, and create long-lived support networks.

Launched in 2021 at Sheffield Hallam University with Natural Environment Research Council funding, Equator continued in 2023-24 at the University of Birmingham with Research England QR funding. A third phase ran in 2025 with British Geological Survey sponsorship.

In 2025, a network of NERC-funded Doctoral Landscape Award holders committed to sponsor Equator annually for up to 5 years. This exciting new phase allows Equator to work in direct partnership with UK centres of postgraduate Environmental research training.

Equator’s goal is to increase participation and retention of Black, Asian and minority ethnic students in postgraduate environmental research, through three key aims:

• To improve access and participation

• To increase retention and improve student experience

• To remove barriers to access

Our theory of change is that targeted interventions at crucial career stages will increase recruitment and retention of PhD students from marginalised backgrounds, with knock-on impacts for race equity in the environmental research landscape.

EquatorResearchGroup@gmail.com