Second Grantham climate change research centre for London

Philanthropic donation creates new opportunities for Imperial to work with LSE - News

By Danielle Reeves
Friday 18 April 2008

Philanthropists Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham are creating a second climate change research centre in London, following their donation of £12 million to Imperial College in 2007 to establish the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, it was announced today.

The new research centre will be based at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and will be called the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Researchers at the new LSE Institute will collaborate with the engineering, scientific, medical and technological expertise of Imperial's Grantham Institute for Climate Change. Together the two institutes will address the fundamental science and economics of climate change, and its impacts on the natural environment and society, and help to develop the policy, technological and economic solutions needed.

Prof Hoskins, Director of Imperial's Grantham Institute, welcomes future collaborations with LSE

The Granthams' total investment in both Imperial and LSE of over £24 million, made through the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, is one of the largest private donations to climate change research in the UK.

Chaired by Lord Stern of Brentford, the new Institute will bring together LSE's expertise on economics, finance, geography, the environment, international development and political economy to focus on policy-relevant research, teaching and training in climate change and the environment.

Welcoming the news of the Granthams' new donation, Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of Imperial's Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said: "This new Institute at LSE opens the door for vital new collaborations between Imperial's science, engineering and healthcare experts and LSE's social and economic specialists to tackle some of the biggest issues facing our planet today.

"The creation of this new institute, alongside Imperial's Grantham Institute with its links to the University of Reading, provides the UK with a hub of research excellence which can grapple with every aspect of climate change and all the challenges it presents."

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