Net+ Leadership Academy launches with a focus on connection and care 

How do we develop the leadership needed to respond to interconnected challenges in climate and health? 

That question is at the heart of the new Net+ Leadership Academy, which has brought together 25 emerging leaders from across academia, the public sector, NGOs and charities, business and the creative industries. 

The Academy launched this month with its first three-day residential retreat at Dartington Hall in Devon, beginning a three-year programme designed to build leadership capacity, strengthen connections across sectors and disciplines, and create a community that can learn and work together. 

Why a Leadership Academy? 

Climate and health challenges are complex, interconnected and constantly evolving. Responding to them requires people who can work beyond traditional boundaries — connecting different forms of knowledge, experience and expertise. 

The Net+ Leadership Academy was created to provide space for that kind of leadership to develop. 

Rather than a one-off training programme, the same cohort will come together over three years, combining leadership development with expert insight, mentoring, knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning. 

Fellows will also become part of the wider Centre for Net Positive Health and Climate Solutions, with opportunities to contribute to its research, events and wider community. 

Leading through connection and care 

The theme for the first retreat, held from 16–18 September, was Leading through connection and care. 

Over three days, Fellows had time to step away from their day-to-day roles and explore what leadership means when working with complex climate and health challenges. 

Just as importantly, the retreat created space to make connections. 

Bringing together people working in different sectors and disciplines allows different perspectives and experiences to meet — and creates opportunities for conversations and collaborations that might not otherwise happen. 

Prof Stewart Barr, Sustainability lead for the Net Positive Centre commented, 

“The first residential of the Net+ Leadership Academy at Dartington Hall in Devon was a really energetic, positive and sociable gathering, enabling our new Fellows and Centre staff to get to know one another in a beautiful setting. Throughout the event, there was lively discussion that enabled Fellows’ to share their own experiences of researching climate and health, drawing on their wide disciplinary, professional and sectoral backgrounds. We enjoyed keynote talks, explorations of leadership styles, reflections on ethics and care, discussions on the use of AI, a foraging walk, a visit to the regenerative farm at the Apricot Centre, a film screening and even a climate- and health pub quiz! Throughout all the activities, we focused on how we can work together to create a community of practice that enables us to find solutions to climate and health challenges. “

That community is central to the Academy. Fellows will remain connected between retreats and return each year, allowing relationships and ideas to develop over time rather than ending when the first event finishes. 

A community that will shape what comes next 

The Academy has also been designed to evolve with its Fellows. 

Each year, the cohort will help identify a topic of current concern in climate and health to shape the following year’s retreat, ensuring the programme responds to the challenges they are encountering across research, policy and practice. 

Over the next three years, Fellows will have opportunities to learn from one another, develop collaborations and contribute to the wider work and legacy of the Net+ Centre. 

The ambition is not simply to develop individual leaders, but to build a connected community of people able to work across boundaries and act as catalysts for change within their organisations, sectors and beyond. 

Because addressing interconnected climate and health challenges will require leadership that is interconnected too.