Dr. Robert Oakes works in the Environment and Migration: Interactions and Choices (EMIC) Division. He researches the reasons for, and outcomes of mobility including evacuation, displacement, voluntary migration, planned relocation in addition to those who are unwilling, or unable to move.
In so doing, he hopes to contribute to understanding in which circumstances mobility should be considered a form of adaptation, and when it represents loss and damage.
Much of his research has considered how place attachment and subjectivity interact with more structural factors to influence decisions to move. He has specific interests in health and the way in which children are affected by climate mobility. He is adept at qualitative and quantitative research tools with expertise in Q method and agent-based models.
Robert has worked on major climate migration projects, such as Pacific Climate Change and Migration (PCCM) project with UNESCAP, UNDP and ILO, and the Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy (MECLEP) project with IOM. He has consulted for Wetlands International, UNICEF, IOM, GIZ and Germanwatch.
He connects his work to policy and he is a regular contributor to UNFCCC processes and the Platform on Disaster Displacement and is involved in the CliMigHealth network, Climate Resilience Initiative and City Responses to Climate Risks Initiative.
Robert currently manages the institute's contribution to the EU funded projects LOCOMOTION and RethinkAction where his role is concerned with humanizing models which seek to understand transition pathways.
He undertook his PhD at the University of Sussex where he investigated evacuation decision-making in the contexts of hurricanes and lectured on sustainable development and environmental risk. At UNU-EHS he lectures on environmental migration and how it relates to health, and has recently worked with the EMIC and PACET team to develop an e-learning resource on human mobility in the context of climate change.