The mission of the GCE excellence centre is to join the expertise of 3 research groups of the Department of Biology, UAntwerp. Bringing together the 3 groups catalyzes novel scientific research. All the consortium members have a strong scientific reputation in ecology. In their research, they are looking at the influence of global changes on natural ecosystems, from different points of view: climate change and extreme climates, invasive plants and animals, changes in crucial element cycles (like nitrogen and phosphorus), habitat fragmentation,...

The GCE couples this knowledge, to allow a big step forward in the understanding of human impact on the environment. Interactions between different pressures are crucial to understand the consequences of human intervention, but these interactions also form a strong scientific challenge. Addressing this challenge is possible through the unique scientific synergy.

We don't only have the ambition to perform excellent science. We also want to strengthen our research communication, e.g. through the website, but also through social networks. We want to step out with our research, by joining public science events. Last but not least, we want to provide a stage for scientist that make a difference in global change ecology: from 2016, we will organize a seminar series starring both national and international key-players.