PANORAMA - A Yorkshire partnership for training in environmental careers

A new training partnership across Yorkshire will prepare postgraduate researchers for careers tackling environmental challenges. This matters because the UK needs skilled environmental scientists to address issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Traditional PhD training often focuses narrowly on academic research, leaving graduates less prepared for roles in industry, government, and non-profits. The PANORAMA partnership fills this gap by creating a coordinated network of universities, businesses, and environmental organisations across Yorkshire, offering students hands-on experience and broader career pathways. If successful, the programme could produce a generation of environmental professionals who move more easily between academia and the organisations that manage the region’s natural resources, water systems, and green infrastructure. This could strengthen the pipeline of talent for sectors that quietly underpin daily life—such as flood defence, water treatment, and land management—without requiring a dramatic overhaul of how postgraduate training is delivered. The project is primarily an education and skills initiative, not fundamental science. Its impact will be measured by the careers its graduates pursue and the environmental problems they help solve, rather than by a single discovery or breakthrough.