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A generous new gift from Sussex alumnus Peter Carpenter will fund climate researchers from Africa. The grant was coordinated through the Development and Alumni Relations Office (DARO) and the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP).

As part of this new gift, the SSRP, in conjunction with the Geography department in the School of Global Studies, has set up the ‘Peter Carpenter African Sustainability Future Leaders Group’. This Group will consist of three fully funded PhD students and a postdoctoral Research Fellow, who will undertake innovative research on climate change in Africa. Geography Professors Martin Todd and Joseph Alcamo – who is also the Director of SSRP – will supervise these PhD students and postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Previously known as the ‘Peter Carpenter Africa Climate Scholarship’ and hosted in the Climate Science and Society Research (CSSR) group in the School of Global Studies, this generous alumni gift has funded three PhD students from Africa since 2013.

Peter Carpenter says, “I started the Peter Carpenter Africa Climate Change PhD Scholarship programme in 2013, as I’d seen from working in Africa that it was one of the continents most affected by climate change, but was one of the least researched.

"Over the past eight years, two of our PhD scholars have gone on to become Research Fellows at Sussex, to strengthen and promulgate the body of knowledge on climate change in Africa.

"We have now secured the funding to continue the PhD scholarship programme through to 2027, and it is gaining the traction and momentum to make a real and lasting contribution to the understanding and management of climate change in Africa.”

The recently reconfigured ‘Peter Carpenter Climate Change Scholarship’ supported by SSRP builds upon the formerly established aims of the scholarship. It seeks to understand the nature, causes, impacts and consequences of climate variability and representation in models, leading to improved climate decision-making in water and agricultural planning, risk management, adaptation policy and climate action.

Professor Martin Todd comments on scholars working on climate research in Africa, “Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate hazards. The Peter Carpenter scholarships have already supported training for a number of students to develop the technical skills necessary to assess climate impacts and develop better forecasts. The students have benefitted from being embedded in the portfolio of related research projects at Sussex including the SSRP. This training helps build the critical mass of climate specialists in Africa which will improve the capacity for risk management by relevant agencies in Africa.”

Dr Netsanet Alamirew, a physicist from Ethiopia and a previous recipient of the Peter Carpenter Africa Climate Scholarship to complete his PhD at Sussex, will fulfil the new Research Fellow post starting early this year. The three new PhD places will begin over the next three academic years. The focus of Netsanet’s research will be on computer modelling the impacts of climate change on water quality in rivers in Africa. Recent research has shown that water pollution in the Global South is a threat to health, food security and biodiversity.

Commenting on this research, Professor Joseph Alcamo, Director of SSRP says, “I’m very pleased that this generous donation from Peter Carpenter will help support urgently needed studies of climate impacts on water quality in rivers in Africa. The degradation of water quality is causing a new kind of water scarcity in Africa and the Global South, and climate change could worsen the problem. Computer modelling will help us understand the impacts of climate change and enable us to evaluate different options for minimising its impacts.”

Dr Netsanet Alamirew says, “I am excited to be part of this project, which seeks to quantify the impact of climate change on river water in Africa. The impact of climate change on water resources is exacerbating to what is already existing scarcity in Africa and thus needs urgent assessment and response. I am hopeful this project will lead us to a useful finding which can be used to inform policy makers. I also expect to further develop myself into being an accomplished researcher in the field of climate science. I applaud Mr Peter Carpenter for his continued generosity on funding projects on climate research in Africa.”

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