Soil underpins life on earth as we know it. Soils support services that have allowed and informed the evolution of humans through millennia and services we all rely on every day. Soil science integrates aspects of biology, chemistry, geology, and ecology and so can greatly support our understanding of the natural world and its processes, and is critical to advances in scientific enquiry from climate change to medical advances.

STARS (Soils Training and Research Studentships) was a unique centre for doctoral training (CDT), which was established in 2015 to address a UK skills shortage in Soil Science. The government-funded CDT was established across a range of universities and research institutes in the UK. It recruited 41 PhD students equitably split across the institutions (internal link – ‘Partners’) under four core research themes (internal link ‘Soil learning resources’) identified as being central to the national need:

1. Understanding the soil–root interface
2. Soils and the delivery of ecosystem services
3. Resilience and response of functions in soil systems
4. Modelling the soil ecosystem at different spatial and temporal scales.

The STARS CDT provided a diverse skills programme, including: Holistic training in soils, the promotion of collegiality and joint working, strategies to promote science and generate impact, internships with end users (e.g., policymakers, industry), personal wellbeing, and ways to generate a lasting soils training legacy.

This site brings together soil science knowledge for post-graduate environmental students, inter-disciplinary researchers, educators, practitioners and the lone scholar so we might share and extend that knowledge.

We want to make soil science knowledge accessible across the disciplines to enhance learning and understanding of this precious natural resource.