NERC Council member
Professor Richard Bardgett CBE is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Council.
Professor Bardgett is a soil ecologist whose work explores how soils and their biodiversity shape the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and their response to land use and climate change. He is also interested in the practical implementation of soil ecological concepts for climate mitigation and restoration of degraded ecosystems.
A recent focus of his recent work is ecological resilience and understanding how soil microbial communities and the biogeochemical cycles they regulate respond to and recover from climate extremes. His work also explores how vegetation and land use moderate below-ground responses to climate extremes and consequences for biogeochemical cycles.
He served as President of the British Ecological Society from 2017 to 2018 and is currently a member of Defra’s Scientific Advisory Council (SAC). He co-founded the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, established in 2011 to promote translation of soil biodiversity knowledge into policy, and currently serves as one of its co-directors.
Richard is Professor of Ecology in the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, having recently moved from the University of Manchester’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, where he founded the Soil and Ecosystem Ecology Laboratory.
He was elected:
- Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2006
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2011
- Member Academia Europaea in 2015
In 2023 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to soil ecology and climate change science.
Last updated: 1 April 2025