The Politics and Environment Research Group (PERG) was established in 2006 and is the Department of Geography's newest research group. The aim of the group is to promote interdisciplinary research based on three themes of major importance for understanding the varied inter-relationships between geopolitics, environmental politics and physical geography: 
1. the geographies of governance and the politics of scale 
2. popular culture and geographical representations of environmental change and security 
3. public understandings of policy making

Since its inception, PERG has attracted funding from a range of source including the British Academy, the ESRC, the European Union, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Royal Geographical Society. Research partnerships and initiatives have been forged with DEFRA, Kent Wildlife Trust, the Science Museum and SEEDA, alongside academic relationships with institutions such as the European Centre of International Studies (Brussels), Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, and the Jacques Maritain Institute (Italy). 
The Group jointly manages a MSc in Sustainability and Management (with the School of Management) and supports a growing postgraduate and postdoctoral community. PERG staff teach throughout the undergraduate curriculum and contribute to the Department of Geography's masters programmes - Cultural Geography (Research) and Practicising Sustainable Development.

Professor Klaus Dodds
Director of PERG