Partnerships

LEAF works in partnership with charities, government, businesses and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to ensure that the research conducted at the University of Leeds has a tangible and beneficial impact.

UBoC

Working in partnership with other organisations, UBoC is developing methodologies to better understand the dynamic relationships between trees, natural and urban environments, and people. This covers a range of themes from conversion of conifer plantations to mixed native woods in Cumbria, the value of street trees to the local community and economy, and the area of forest that will be needed to achieve an organisation’s climate goals. UBoC strives to provide a robust scientific underpinning for policy makers, to ensure that our research has real world impact that benefits both the planet and people, on local and global scales.

UBoC supports PhD students and research activity at the University of Leeds as part of LEAF.

Leeds City Council

We have formed the Leeds4Trees partnership with Leeds City Council and UBoC to promote local and global forest education, research and green-space development.

The Parks and Countryside team at Leeds City Council currently manages around 4,000 hectares of green-space, including 1,300 hectares of woodland. Already, this collaboration has resulted in the establishment of the Leeds Forest Observatory and the i-Tree Leeds project. Informed by the work of the Leeds4Trees partnership, LCC have ambitions to double the current tree canopy cover of Leeds by 2050.

Wild Ingleborough

Wild Ingleborough is a partnership between Natural England’s Ingleborough National Nature Reserve team, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the University of Leeds, UBoC, The Woodland Trust and WWF to undertake landscape-scale restoration from the valley floor to the top of the Ingleborough mountain.

The White Rose Forest

To extend the aims and ambitions of the Leeds4Trees project beyond Leeds, we're working in partnership with the White Rose Forest, the community forest for North and West Yorkshire. LEAF researchers are helping local authorities to better understand the amount of woodland creation that is needed to be compatible with their targets to reach net-zero carbon emissions.

The Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust are the UK's largest woodland conservation charity. In 2018 they joined the Leeds4Trees team to find out more about the benefits provided by urban trees in Leeds during the second phase of the i-Tree Leeds project.

University of Leeds Sustainability Service

We are collaborating with the Sustainability Service as part of their innovative Living Lab programme. Through this partnership we conducted a survey of the trees on the University of Leeds campus and evaluated the benefits they are providing; read our report here. We are now working with the University to ensure that our findings are taken into account during future development planning.

BBC Terrific Scientific

Working with the BBC, UBoC and the Woodland Trust, we devised the Terrific Scientific Trees Investigation. Terrific Scientific is a major 18 month UK-wide campaign to bring practical science into the nation’s classrooms and homes. As part of Terrific Scientific, children aged 9-11 learned about the importance of the trees in and around their school grounds and collected data to send to scientists here at LEAF.

Centre for Environmental Modelling and Computation

We are working closely with the new Centre for Environmental Modelling and Computation (CEMAC) at the University of Leeds. Our partnership with CEMAC has enabled the presentation of air quality data online, as part of the Air Pollution Garden project and the Living Lab for Air Quality.

If your organisation would like to be involved with our work, please contact us.