Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience - CAWR

02/09/2026

If you wanted to catch up on any of our previous seminars then take a look at our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/

31/08/2026

Francis Rayns and Judith Conroy presented a webinar for Garden Organic members. This was based on CAWR’s NERC funded REPAS project that explored citizen science as a way of quantifying environmental contamination. As well as highlighting the problems arising from microplastic contamination some practical tips for managing plastic use were suggested.

28/08/2026

Francis Rayns recently attended an open day in Essex to see trials being conducted as part of the project ‘Empowering English farmers to produce peat-free composts for horticulture’. This ADOPT funded work is evaluating different methods of composting willow, a rapidly growing crop that produces biomass which could be more widely used on-farm. Composted willow was an ingredient in some of the growing media blends developed at CAWR for use in pressed blocks.

27/08/2026

The OneSTOP and DAISY projects will present their work and engage with visitors at the annual EcoFest in Leamington Spa. Come and join us at the Pump Room Gardens, 10 – 5 on Saturday, 5th of September: https://bit.ly/3Sri3U9

27/08/2026

Between 29 June and 3 July 2026, Liliane Binego visited Biovision Africa Trust and the African Institute for Culture and Ecology (AFRICE) in Uganda. Engagement with Biovision Africa Trust focused on strengthening the EU AGROECOLOGY Partnership WGI and assessing agroecology scaling methods in East Africa. Engagement with AFRICE explored opportunities for research collaboration on agroecology-driven ecosystem rejuvenation, indigenous seed revival, and sustainable farming systems.

26/08/2026

Professor Dr Ulrich Schmutz, WP11 ‘Agroecology at Scale” lead, of the 300-million, 10-year Agroecology Partnership (AP) Horizon Project visited Terre et Cité and the University Paris-Saclay. Both have joined the partnership project and work in WP11. Both can also participate in the 30-million annual calls of the AP partnership.
However, a Coventry University (CU) contribution in the partnership calls is dependent on the new government to sign up and contribute 50% for England to make the partnership work. This is different to the EU Horizon project running the calls where CU and CUAS Ltd. (CU Academic Services Limited) are already in with €5.2 million (leading WP11). For the calls of the partnership funding is 50-50. This means 50% funding from the country (e.g. Ireland, Turkey, or England if signed up) topped up with 50% from the European Union (EU).

24/08/2026

We've got four Green Gown Award category shortlists to tell you about!

Run annually by the EAUC, these awards recognise sustainability achievements across the education sector.

These are the categories for which we have nominations:

🔹2030 Climate Action category:
This nomination recognises our commitment in the 2030 Group Strategy to achieve net zero for scope 1 and 2 emissions and reduce scope 3 emissions by 30% by 2030: https://pulse.ly/xm1htchfh6

🔹Staff Sustainability Champion category:
Over the past 8-12 months, Your Students' Union has established a Sustainability Working Group to support and enhance its delivery, in line with our organisational values of being helpful, inclusive and ethical: https://pulse.ly/efbexs7hzq

🔹Research with Impact category:
Two finalists in this category come from our Research Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR):

Focusing on bracken, a toxic, climate-driven fern that fuels wildfires and releases hazardous compounds, CAWR developed a nature-based solution centred on the endangered Welsh Mountain Pony which reduced the risk/spread of wildfires: https://pulse.ly/hxg05vqy5p

The second nomination is for the design and evaluation of peat-free blocking media. Peat has been a mainstay in horticulture due to its exceptional properties, but its extraction exacerbates climate change, destroys habitats and increases flood risk: https://pulse.ly/b2dlyl0vmy

24/08/2026

The 3rd meeting of the OneSTOP Living Lab, organised by Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz and Helen Bayliss took place in July at Ryton Pools Country Park to discuss first results from the air eDNA sampling conducted there last year. Participants also had an opportunity to see the CamAlien system designed to record invasive plants along roads, canals and train tracks from vehicles and will now be available to stakeholders for testing. Further updates included the launch of the new Plant Alert citizen science app to report invasive ornamental plants from gardens and the forthcoming non-native flatworm app. https://bit.ly/44ZkiRg

24/08/2026

21/08/2026

Ulrich Schmutz and Rosemary Venn attended the bi-annual international EURAF agroforestry conference (the next conference will be in Portugal, 2028, and possibly 2030 in England or Ireland). A presentation titled “Valuing silvo-arable ecosystem services for agroforestry certification” was given which included ecological economics and post-capitalist valuing of nature. Data were based on selected AGROMIX project results (a 7m Horizon RIA project with a CU-lead completed in 2025). Further highlights were excursions to FIBL (the world leading organic research centre) and agroforestry sites across Switzerland with agroforestry Living Labs. These are also valuable for the Agroecology Partnership (AP) at landscape scale and organise efficient marketing in place-based food hubs.
The conference gave a platform to advertise BAH (oldest academic journal in the world on Biological (incl. organic, agroecological, agroforestry) Agriculture and Horticulture, with CU as editors-in-chief), and Wakelyns (one of the oldest organic agroforestry research sites in the world) and now in a community buy-out to secure £1.2 million for its future, Guardian newspaper article: https://bit.ly/4xnbi4F