The Centre

The Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at the University of Cambridge is a pioneering interdisciplinary hub dedicated to exploring one of humanity’s most profound questions: how life emerges, evolves, and persists in the cosmos. Drawing together expertise from the physical sciences, life sciences, and philosophy, the Centre fosters bold, collaborative research at the intersection of planetary science, chemistry, biology, and the humanities.

The Centre also collaborates with researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, University College London, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, University of Oxford and the Centre of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey.

Founded in 2022, the Centre has rapidly grown into a vibrant intellectual community, catalysing new research directions and forging international collaborations. Its seminar series, including the flagship Exoplanet Seminar Series and Annual Lecture, have become key platforms for knowledge exchange, attracting leading voices from across the globe and sparking cross-disciplinary dialogue. The Centre’s Coffee Discussions continue to be a vital incubator for ideas, regularly leading to new publications and joint projects.

The Centre’s Visitor Programme has enabled short-term residencies that have directly led to new proposals using cutting-edge missions and observatories such as JWST, ALMA, and LBTI, while the Annual Science Day brings together researchers from across the sciences and humanities to share insights on topics ranging from interior planetary dynamics, to biosignatures, to universal Darwinism.

In 2025, the Centre launched its Large Grant Programme, supporting ambitious, linked projects that integrate experimental, theoretical, and environmental approaches to the origins and distribution of life on Earth and the Universe. These include investigations into plausible activation chemistry, surface hydrothermal vents on the Hadean Earth, and the habitability of ice worlds and Hycean planets. The Centre also continues to support a wide range of single-PI led research projects. Scientific outputs have been consistently published in leading journals including Science- and Nature-family journals, in addition to leading journals in astrophysics and planetary science, chemistry, andEarth sciences.

The Centre is deeply committed to widening participation, and its Student Placement Programme has had a transformative impact on aspiring researchers, with Interns reporting increased confidence, scientific direction, and a strong sense of belonging within Cambridge’s research community. Our relatively small cohort to date has had a remarkable PhD success rate that far exceeds the university average.

Through its growing digital archive of seminars and lectures, now viewed over 11,000 times across more than ten countries, the Centre is extending its reach and influence far beyond Cambridge, engaging a global audience in the search for life in the universe.

Efforts to bring together researchers working in planetary science and life in the Universe at the University of Cambridge started with the formation of the Cambridge Exoplanet Research Centre in 2013. The Centre aimed at stimulating joint coordinated efforts and collaborations between researchers based at the Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), and the Institute of Astronomy (IoA). Research within the Centre focused on a series of key questions ranging from planet formation mechanics, structures and dynamics of planetary systems to the question of the remote detection of life on another planet.

These collaborative efforts were expanded to include researchers from Cambridge’s Departments of Chemistry and Earth Sciences through the formation of the Cambridge Initiative for Planetary Science and Life in the Universe (IPLU) in 2021. The Initiative aimed at facilitating the development of a new Cambridge research community investigating life in the Universe, from understanding how it emerged on Earth to examining the processes that could make other planets suitable for life.

In 2022, the University of Cambridge was awarded a £10 million grant from the Leverhulme Trust to establish the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, bringing together an international team of researchers to investigate the nature and extent of life in the Universe. The Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe was a bid to Leverhulme Trust’s call for “original research which would establish or reshape a significant field of study and transform our understanding of an important topic in contemporary societies”.

Building on the efforts made by the IPLU, the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe will support fundamental cross-disciplinary research over the next 10 years to tackle one of the great interdisciplinary challenges of our time: to develop a deeper understanding of life, its emergence, and its distribution in the Universe.

Networks

“For thousands of years, humanity and science have contemplated the origins of life in the Universe. While today’s scientists are well-equipped with innovative technologies, humanity has a long way to go before we fully understand the fundamental aspects of what life is and how it forms."
Carl Zimmer, columnist, The New York Times and author of “Life’s Edge: The search for what it means to be alive".

The Origins Federation is a research consortium with the goal of facilitating efficient multidisciplinary and innovative collaborative research to advance our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos.

It is established by the following centers:

The Origins of Life Initiative (Harvard University)
Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (ETH-Zurich)
Center for the Origins of Life (University of Chicago)
Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (University of Cambridge)

The Origins Federation will pursue scientific research topics of interest to its founding centers with a long-term perspective. It will strive to create opportunities for creative and innovative ideas, and to enable young scientists to make a career in this new field.

The Origins Federation is open to new collaborators, both centers and individuals, and is committed to working together to build the platform for a vibrant community. Please visit the Federation website for further detail.

Since 2022 federation members come together at an annual conference. This year the next Annual Meeting of the Origins Federation will take place at ETH Zurich, Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life on September 7 – 11, 2026. The conference will combine some broad field review lectures, multiple short science update talks, a large poster session with opportunity for discussions and informal interactions.

Founding Partners