Professor Carsten Smith-Hall is global leader in environmental products and livelihoods research and teaching, with a strong track record of developing, funding, and managing international and interdisciplinary research and teaching projects, raising more than €32 million in external funding (99+ per cent as PI). He publishes in both natural and social science journals. His research is focused on (i) environment-people relationships, including the role of forests in preventing and reducing poverty, (ii) commercial utilisation of biodiversity, with emphasis on trade and conservation, and increasingly (iii) the bioeconomy and climate change. He is a member of several international journal boards, co-coordinates the IUFRO Global Task Force on Unlocking the Bioeconomy and Non-Timber Forest Products, and serves the World Conservation Union's Medicinal Plant Specialist Group and the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.

He has significant capacity-building and collaboration experience through a range of large-scale projects around the world. He was also responsible for the EU-funded global PhD programme Forest and Nature for Society (2009-2019) and the European elite MSc programme in Sustainable Tropical Forestry (2005-19). He is currently the co-ordinator and Head of Studies for the new Erasmus Mundus MSc in Global Environment and Development (MERGED). He is a strong advocate of the internationalisation of university teaching and a pioneer in developing and applying technology in teaching (e-learning).