The Smith School conducts research in various disciplines including finance, enterprise, economics, and law, with a collective focus on thinking about public and private sector decision-making and sustainable development. Particular research focuses within these disciplines include biodiversity, climate, energy, food, regenerative economy, and water. A critical contribution of the Oxford Smith School has been to frame the narrative of
climate change and environmental concerns into the language of risk for enterprises and governments. Concepts such as
stranded assets developed by Dr
Ben Caldecott help make these risks concrete and guide sustainable finance and climate-aware decision-making across public and private sector entities. The School led the development of the Oxford Offsetting Principles, which are considered industry gold-standard and contributes to global understanding of
net zero, the clean energy transition, and sustainable cooling. During the Covid-19 crisis the Smith School engaged heavily with topics of Green Economic Recovery, co-leading the Oxford University Economic Recovery Project which has engaged over 20 governments and international institutions such as the
IMF, the
WTO,
the World Bank and the
United Nations Environment Programme. The School’s Sustainable Law Programme has been engaged by leading environmental lawsuits such as
Lliuya v RWE AG to test legal responses to climate change. Since 2015, the REACH programme has been working with government, UNICEF, academic institutions, private sector and civil society partners to improve water security for 10 million people in Africa and Asia. ==Education==