Professor Saffron O'Neill
Professor in Climate & Society
S.O'Neill@exeter.ac.uk
6202
Amory C355c
Amory Building, University of Exeter, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ , UK
Overview
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Saffron O’Neill is Professor in Geography. Her research explores the social science dimensions of climate variability and change, particularly focusing on communication and public engagement. Her research specialism is the visual communication of climate change. She held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship on this topic titled ‘The Visual Life of Climate Change’ (2021-2023) and an ESRC Future Leaders Fellowship (2012-2017).
Saffron is Co-Director of the Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS) (2023-2025) funded by the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. Saffron is also a Co-Director (Communications and Outreach) of the ESRC-funded ACCESS network (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science) (2021-2026).
From 2023 onwards, Saffron is Director of EDI within the Geography department, a role shared with Dr Dunia Urrego. She is also a University Autism Champion.
Saffron tweets regularly: about climate change, communication, media, visuals, imagery and on working towards a more inclusive research culture. Find her @SaffronJONeill.
Qualifications
BSc Geography (University of Southampton: First Class Honours)
PhD in Environmental Science (University of East Anglia)
Links
Research group links
Research
Research projects
Saffron's research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the social science dimensions of climate variability and climate change. Her work explores risk perception, risk communication and public engagement with climate change; and the implications of these areas for public policy. She has experience in using diverse social science methods. She has published research using survey, interview, focus group, expert elicitation, photo-elicitation and Q methods; and content and frame analysis.
Grants/Funding:
2022 QUEX Institute Workshop Grant, 'Imagining a Fairer Future: Connecting the Frontiers of Visual Research' (PI) £3,000
2021 - 2023 Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 'The Visual Life of Climate Change'. (PI) (£50,833)
2021 ESRC Climate and Environment Leadership Grant, 'ACCESS (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science)', (co-I) £6,249,934
2021 - 2023 Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) 'Evaluating the impact of climate communication' (Co-I) (£267,660)
2021 NERC Discipline Hopping for Environmental Solutions Fund, 'Climate change on YouTube: multi-scalar, multi-method approaches for understanding climate misinformation' (Co-I) (£9,118)
2019 - 2020 Norwegian Environment Agency, 'Topical Collection: Climate Communication and the IPCC' (PI) (250,000 kr / £20,733)
2019 - 2020 ESRC Impact Accelerator Account, ‘Picturing climate change: media training for human editors and machine algorithms (PI) (£4,938)
2012 - 2017 ESRC Future Research Leader fellowship: ‘Visualising climate change’ (PI) (£214,811)
2014 - 2015 ESRC Urgency Grant: 'The 2013/14 winter floods and policy change: the dynamics of change in the aftermath of major crises’ (Co-I) (£198,044)
2014 - 2015 HASS (Humanities and Social Science) Fund, University of Exeter, ‘Media and the cultural politics of climate: tracking the coverage of the IPCC 5AR’ (PI) (£9,971)
2011 – 2012 Early Career Researcher Grants Scheme, Melbourne University, Australia: ‘Visualising climate change: international perspectives on mitigation and adaptation’ (PI) (AU$19,103 / £11,880)
From 2016-2022, Saffron has also supported ten PhD students through sucessful applications for PhD scholarship funding (five as lead supervisor, and five as co-supervisor). Eight of these studenships have been funded through the ESRC's SWDTP scheme, one as an industry/matched studentship, and one through the QUEX studentship scheme.
Publications
Books
Journal articles
Chapters
Conferences
Reports
External Engagement and Impact
Significant Impact
Commissioned by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission in 2010 to analyse emergency response following the 2009 Australian bushfires, and this influenced subsequent policy change in Victoria.
Teaching
Saffron is not currently teaching as she holds a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. Saffron usually convenes the interdisciplinary GEO2317 module (Climate Change: Science and Society) and contributes to a vairety of others through the undergraduate and Masters-level Geography programmes.
Modules
2023/24
Information not currently available
Supervision / Group
Postdoctoral researchers
- Phil Johnstone (now at University of Sussex)
Postgraduate researchers
- Sophie Guy Psychology, University of Melbourne, Australia; co-supervision with Yoshihisa Kashima and Iain Walker
- Colette Mortreux Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia; co-supervision with Jon Barnett
- Bouke Wiersma Geography, University of Exeter; co-supervision with Patrick Devine-Wright