Early Career Researcher Programme: Conversations about Conservation

With Dr Will Morgan, Department of Zoology and CRI

Can a research question change the world (and what IS that question?)

I would like to use this conversation to explore the most pressing questions in conservation and discuss how answering them rigorously might genuinely “move the dial” on the things we care about most. This could be reversing biodiversity declines, improving the lives and livelihoods of communities, imagining new nature-positive futures, or any other topic that you are currently feeling passionate about.

I then want to discuss how answering these questions could precipitate change in the real world. What enabling conditions need to be in place (institutional, financial, political, metaphysical…?) and how can we work together to put them there.

I often find myself thinking about physics projects like LIGO, the LHC or the International Space Station (which cost from $1–150 billion to build and maintain), and whether the conservation sector could rally around similarly ambitious ideas to deliver something game-changing for people and planet. This is not to say that I’m looking for a high-tech solution (though there might be one or two along the way), but for a shared vision that could inspire large-scale collaboration and investment, quite possibly driven by a set of research questions.

Maybe you agree, and maybe you think I’ve completely missed the point. Either way, let’s have a conversation about conversation!