Leverhulme Centre for
Anthropocene Biodiversity
PDRA Recruitment

The Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (LCAB) is a major research centre funded by the Leverhulme Trust to increase knowledge of how the relationship between humanity and the natural world is changing, and how we might move forwards to maintain and develop a sustainable Earth. The Centre represents an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of York (UK), the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), UCL (UK), and the University of St Andrews (UK). 

We live in a time of intertwined social and environmental challenges. This period, widely referred to as the ‘Anthropocene’, is an event marked by unprecedented human influence on the Earth’s ecological and planetary processes as well as being a culturally-defined state of human thinking. The prevailing narrative is of loss of species, ecosystems, and ecosystem services. But the changes can also bring benefits to species that are able to exploit new environments, and to people who adjust new social-ecological systems to their own ends. 

LCAB recognises biological gains as well as losses, changes that are beneficial to humans as well as ones that are harmful, and identifies the circumstances under which changes are perceived as either positive or negative. LCAB aims to understand and thus inform and influence society’s response to these changes, reconceptualising the Anthropocene so as to bring about positive change.