Centres of Excellence

Our Centres of Excellence are the University’s pillars of research strength. They help us drive progress for our planet and its people – and inspire us to see that a challenge is only impossible until it's done.

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Explore our Centres of Excellence

Our Centres of Excellence each undertake highly innovative and potentially transformative research.

They have been created to provide an environment and culture where researchers can truly believe a challenge is only impossible until it’s done.

Explore our Centres below.

More from our Centres of Excellence

Hear from the world-leading researchers within our Centres of Excellence. Learn about the impossible challenges they are taking on and how each Centre is driving progress for our planet and its people.

• Video transcript 

  Professor Gail Davey OBE: When I think about impossible, I think of lack of imagination.

  [Screen reads 'Impossible until it's done']

  Professor Winfried Hensinger: When people tell me something can't be done, I just love to try.

  Professor Alice Eldridge: Don't think anyone's ever told me something's impossible.

  Professor Gail Davey OBE: I don't usually see it as a a barrier. I just think there must be other ways of doing something.

  [Screen reads 'Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies]

  Professor Winfried Hensinger: Quantum physics is a theory that governs everything around us, every process in nature. Quantum computers will enable us to investigate the fabric of reality to create a better future. 

  [Caption reads Professor Winfried Hensinger, Director of the Sussex Centre for Quantum Technologies]

  Professor Winfried Hensinger: I've spent 20 years working with colleagues to understand and develop the science. Now we are building a full scale quantum computer that will be able to find the answers to some of the most urgent technical challenges of our time.

  From designing drugs for healthcare to making aircraft engines more fuel efficient. University of Sussex has become a powerhouse for quantum technology. We've launched the world's first quantum technology undergraduate degree, where students carry out research from day one, and we have vital links with industry to make amazing things happen.

  [Screen reads: Sussex Digital Humanities Lab]

  Professor Alice Eldridge: We are entering the sixth great extinction. We need to know what is happening in our forests, our farmland, our oceans, and our soil and ecosystems.

  [Caption reads 'Professor Alice Eldridge, Co-director of Sussex Digital Humanities Lab]

  Professor Alice Eldridge: Our work in ecoacoustics aims to develop tools to listen into the soundscape that emerges from an ecosystem as a way to understand its health.
  
  Listening to these soundscapes we find helps people connect with nature and remember that they're a part of, not apart from the rest of the living world. Our research centre brings together experts from arts and humanities, computing and social sciences, remixing those disciplines to solve the challenges that we are facing.

  The next generation of tools for planetary care will be co-created with scientific and traditional ecological knowledges. We hope to create a world where people and planet thrive as one. 

  [Screen reads 'Centre for Global Health Research']

  Professor Gail Davey OBE: Podoconiosis can lead to an inability to walk, to work, and to being ostracised by others. It's a disease that affects four million in some of the world's poorest countries. 

  [Caption reads 'Professor Gail Davey OBE, Co-director of Centre for Global Health Research]

  Professor Gail Davey OBE: Podoconiosis is fundamentally about health inequity around the world. The great challenge has been raising awareness, so governments know this condition exists.
  
  When you realise that a young teenager is about to commit suicide because of a disease that could have been prevented, had she had access to shoes, then you realise there's something wrong with the world. And I think that is a huge motivation to put that right. Within the Centre for Global Health Research at Sussex, we have an aim, which is to eliminate podoconiosis within our lifetimes.

  That is achievable and I'm committed to continuing work until that goal happens.
  
  [END CARD: University of Sussex logo, with text ‘Impossible until it’s done’ and URL ‘sussex.ac.uk/impossible’]

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You might also be interested in:

• our research centres and groups
• our REF 2021 results
• our Schools.