Travelling Responsibly : Reflections on Sustainable Travel as a Researcher

In this blog, Thea Cameron-Faulkner shares her reflections on sustainable academic travel, drawing on a recent LuCiD-related visit to Madrid. From supporting early career researchers to making conscious travel choices, she begins her story on the penultimate leg of a long-distance train journey to examine a PhD and present LuCiD work.

I’m just on the penultimate leg of a work trip to Madrid to act as external on the PhD of Irene Guevara de Haro (now Dr Irene Guevara de Haro!), and to share our latest work from LuCiD. I met the Madrid research team back in 2015 and was delighted to have the opportunity to support the work of early careers researchers, learn from one of the world-leading researchers in gesture development - Professor Cintia Rodriguez and discuss findings from our LuCiD work packages with researchers from a range of disciplines . 

The benefits of travelling to Madrid were obvious but the thorny issue of how to get there was less clear cut. There’s a growing awareness within the research community (including research councils and grant reviewers! ) that environmental sustainability should be an integral part of our activities, from the way we run our labs and the organisation of meetings and conferences, to the way we get around. This means that air travel cannot be the default option for overseas travel (destination permitting!). As this is my second long distance train trip I thought I’d consider some of the issues that people raise when long distance train travel crops up in conversation…. 

Taking the train takes so long 
Yes, it does. Traveling to Madrid by train takes around a day and a half each way. A flight from Manchester to Madrid take two and a half hours and even when you add on the journey to the airport and the waiting in queues, there’s no comparison timewise. That said long distance train travel is pretty peaceful and usually comes with free Wi-Fi so there’s quality time to get work done and concentrate on those awkward tasks that you may have been putting off.

Train travel is much more expensive than flying
Also true though the cost of flights has gone up significantly for many destinations. Remember too that the aviation industry is heavily subsidised by the government and what we (or the ESRC) pay for flights is not the true cost. Air travel is simply not sustainable, either environmentally or economically. 

Trains are unreliable
Maybe but things are definitely getting better! On my trip of 1,255 miles and 10 trains, all them turned up on time (at the point of writing I’m on the Eurostar and have still got the final leg with Avanti ahead of me). I tend factor in longer breaks between connections than the rail apps suggest. This means that one delayed train doesn’t affect the whole trip, and you can pick up a snack, stretch your legs, whatever between connections. Also, it seems to be increasingly common for flights to be cancelled or rescheduled in the blink of an eye and it’s harder to come up with a plan B when you’re stuck at the airport.

So, there we have three good questions and three honest answers. So why do I go by train?
Firstly, I just can’t really get behind unnecessary air travel with the world the way it is. At the same time meeting people face to face, having conversations over dinner, meeting new people are essential in our life as researchers, particularly for early careers researchers. Secondly as the Director for Social Responsibility and Internationalisation in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, I feel that I should at least try to travel sustainably. The University has a sustainable travel policy and pot of money to support the costs involved so the precedent has been set. Travelling to Spain by train is costly in terms of money and time but many of our trips aren’t quite so far away. Finally trains are just a great way to get around, especially in Europe. I travelled through three countries, saw the snowy Pyrenees mountains, wild flamingos in the south of France, towns, villages and streets full of people just going about their daily business.

Traveling by train gives you plenty of time to consider your priorities and put things in perspective. Finally you can really get things done. This blog will be finished before I even get back home. If you like know more feel free to get in touch.