Preserving the national resource of UK long-term ecological field experiments.
Formed in 2008, the ECT is a unique charity, and is the only organisation dedicated to securing long-term ecological field experiments (LTEs) which are controlled, replicated, manipulative experiments that have been undertaken at an ecosystem level for 6+ years or are funded for 6+ into the future.
Our vision is to develop a strategic network of long-term ecological experiments safeguarding existing high- quality experiments and data, whilst also ensuring new facilities are planned for the long-term.
Our mission is to establish, maintain and develop a strategic network of long-term ecological experimental sites, and monitoring studies (LTMs) throughout the UK, and to help ensure that experimental field ecology is at the heart of evidence-based policymaking and sustainable land use in a time of environmental change. We help end users to harness ecological evidence for action in addressing that environmental change.
What we do
“I think that the public have a view of ecology being short term... A lot of research is taking on 3 year stints and 5 year stints looking at the ecological changes. But these changes often take many decades to take place. ”
Simon Peacock
From his podcast from September 2020 on Palace Leas. Listen to Simon on Soundcloud here.
• We provide financial advocacy, and management support to scientists and land-owners for existing long-term experiments.
• We support the development of new long-term experiments by supporting scientists and land owners.
• We share the knowledge and outcomes gained from long-term ecological research to the wider community; public, civil society stakeholders, private sector, Government.
Small Grants
See the small grants that we offer
LTE User Group
Join the LTE User Group
Researchers at UK institutes register their experiments with the us which enables them to access our support. There are 70+ experimental field sites within our network which includes a range of different habitats, and experiment goals.
We are grateful to these funders past and present for supporting our work:
The British Ecological Society, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Natural England, The Patsy Wood Trust, The Britford Bridge Trust and individual donors.
Learn about the history of the ECT, our Governance and our staff.
Read about the impacts of long-term experiments.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ECOLOGICAL CONTINUITY TRUST (ECT) AND LONG-TERM ECOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS (LTES) WITH JONATHAN SILVERTOWN, ONE OF ECT'S FOUNDING TRUSTEES.
