With the emergence of increasingly complex learning models – discovery-based, hybrid and lifelong learning – we are invited to recognise the learning environment as more dynamic and broadly encompassing than the traditional classroom alone. Nonetheless, the examination of discovery-based learning has remained generally confined to formal timetabled contexts (Freeman et al., 2014). Student interactions in the times and spaces between timetabled classroom learning, including with members of the wider academic community, are increasingly acknowledged as pivotal for learning and sense of belonging.

Given this growing complexity, our presentation introduces an ecological framework which offers a more holistic and dynamic view of the context of learning (Barnett & Jackson, 2019). The approach has helped a UK-based, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), research-intensive university to understand its own challenges in the context of a strategic shift toward more student-centred discovery-based learning. The ecological thinking supported a research-informed transformation of various formal, transitional and informal learning spaces, whilst aiding the management of tensions between passive and active pedagogic practices.

By conceptualising the learning environment and academic community as an interconnected ecosystem with a biodiversity of people and ideas, we might better harness the collective agency and research of universities to educate the future generation of students more effectively and sustainably.