About

The Oxford Human-Nature Health (OxHNH) Research Platform investigates how relationships between people and the natural world can support mental health, community wellbeing, and healthier environments. Our work brings together innovative research, real-world action, and diverse partnerships to understand and promote Ecological Collective Flourishing - a practice-based framework for connecting human mental health and wellbeing with ecological health.

We collaborate with a wide network of universities, institutions, charities, and community organisations, working across disciplines from mental health science and environmental studies to planning, education, and biodiversity. Our partners include research and policy bodies such as the Uehiro Oxford Institute, Gardens, Libraries & Museums, the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum, and national organisations such as the Eden Project, Natural England and Mind. Based within the NEUROSEC team at the Department of Psychiatry, we also work with advisory groups of young and older people, to ensure our research is enhanced thorough patient and public involvement, engagement, and participation. Together with our partners and collaborators, we co-design, test, and share insights that support healthier people, stronger communities, and thriving natural systems.

Through this work, we aim to inform new models of preventative mental health and public wellbeing grounded in connection - with others, with place, and with the wider living world.