What is the opportunity?

A New Home

The Life and Mind Building will become the new home for two University departments: Experimental Psychology and a new Department of Biology, combining Zoology and Plant Sciences.

Experimental Psychology and Zoology occupied the Tinbergen Building on the site prior to its demolition and the departments have had to be relocated to temporary facilities across Oxford.

Unique Opportunity

An efficient, flexible new building will mean those departments require less space, prompting the unique opportunity to bring them together with Plant Sciences, a department currently occupying outdated facilities on the north side of South Parks Road.

Only a building of significant size and optimised efficiency can fulfil the unique opportunity to bring together three departments whose combined research covers the full breadth of life on earth, promising transformational synergy.

A central goal is the promotion of collaboration and openness between the fields of research and education, while also taking advantage of the efficiencies and flexibility a shared building can offer.

Shared Global Impact Themes

While the future occupants of the building research a wide range of themes, many share the potential to significantly further our understanding of life on planet earth. Such impact themes include:

•    Living with biodiversity
•    Thriving on a healthy planet
•    Conflict, cooperation, social complexity
•    Organismal design, construction, inspiration

To promote collaboration critical to take advantage of those overlaps it is critical that the new building will form a shared ecosystem in itself, benefiting all occupants while adapting to their individual needs.

Shared Goals

The new Life and Mind Building offers opportunities beyond the generation of functional facilities for research and education:

• Provide an enhanced home for Experimental Psychology (EP) and Biology (Zoology & Plant Sciences).

• Transform the relationships between the psychological and biological sciences, and their cognate disciplines, by enabling co-location and collaboration in emergent fields.

• Enhance the educational experience.

• Enable the positive transformation of the South Parks Road estate (the Science Area).

• Enhance the ability to attract and retain talent (strongly influenced by the quality of facilities).

• Strengthen the impact of the Science Area through widening engagement with the public, policy makers, and other end users of research.