TERRE aims to promote, through the PhD projects of the Early Stage Research Fellows, a new vision for Civil Engineering training and education. This vision goes beyond a mechanistic view of geotechnical behaviour of the ground and takes a nature-centric scientific approach.

• Soil mechanics historically built upon two main pillars, i.e. solid and fluid mechanics
• Little or no consideration to direct and indirect effects of biological activity
• Little consideration to gas-liquid interaction (effect of capillary tension/suction)

 Dominant culture

• Engineers to ‘tame’ nature via man-made structures.
• Nature to be combated (e.g. reflected in terms like ‘climate-change resilience’)

Vision of TERRE

• Understand and learn from nature (nature is an ally and not an enemy)
• Engineering solutions sought by mimicking processes found in nature