About the School

Based within the University of Oxford's Social Sciences Division, the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) is a dynamic, diverse, interdisciplinary academic department, home to natural and social scientific interests. We are internationally recognised for the quality of our teaching, research and wider engagement across the breadth of human and physical geography and environmental studies.

We provide world-class, multidisciplinary teaching. Our Undergraduate Honour School provides undergraduate students with research-led teaching across human and physical geography, and environmental studies by internationally recognised academic staff.

More than 250 graduate students from a range of nationalities make our International Graduate School one of the largest and most diverse in the discipline.

Research within the School of Geography and the Environment is carried out by over 200 academics and research staff in the academic department and our three research centres, in collaboration with our large graduate research student community and our research affiliates and visiting researchers.

We host three internationally recognised research centres: the Environmental Change Institute (ECI, established 1991), the Transport Studies Unit (TSU, established 1973) and the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment (SSEE, established 2008; affiliated to Geography since 2013).

Environmental Change Institute (ECI)

The Environmental Change Institute (ECI) is Oxford University’s institute for interdisciplinary research on the complex processes of global environmental change, the exploration of sustainable solutions and the promotion of change for the better through partnerships and education. The ECI has over 30 years of experience in helping governments, business and communities anticipate and respond to the risks and opportunities of environmental change.

Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE)

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE) is a leading interdisciplinary academic hub focused upon teaching, research, and engagement with enterprise on climate change and long-term environmental sustainability. It seeks to encourage innovative solutions to challenges facing humanity; its strengths lie in environmental economics and policy, enterprise management, and financial markets and investment.

Transport Studies Unit (TSU)

The Transport Studies Unit (TSU) advances interdisciplinary approaches to the study of transport, with particular emphasis on mobility within and between cities and on transport’s social, economic and environmental implications. Founded in 1973, the TSU has acquired a strong international reputation in the fields of transport policy analysis, the development of new methodologies and studies of transport behaviour and urban mobility.

We moved into the refurbished Oxford University Centre for the Environment building in 2004. A £3.3million reconfiguration of the upper floor and northern elevation, completed in 2015, improved staff office space and the suites occupied by the research centres, and enhanced graduate teaching space, including an IT suite. In May 2022 we completed a £3.5million refurbishment of the Victorian part of the building vacated in 2018 by the Dept of Chemistry.

Our IT systems allow for new and imaginative uses of computational resources by projects, and provide a strong platform when applying for external funding.

Considerable laboratory and field equipment investment has been made in recent years developing and expanding cutting- edge facilities for geomorphology, Quaternary, water and ecosystem research and postgraduate training.

Field research underpins many activities, and we invest annually in an extensive collection of generalist and specialist field equipment to support research and teaching. We have also made extensive use of shared NERC field geophysical equipment facilities, such as ground penetrating radar. We have developed major infrastructure at Wytham Woods, Oxford's ecological research site.