in parallel with the industry agenda, a research agenda around sustainable fashion has been in development since the early 1990s, with the field now having its own history, dynamics, politics, practices, sub-movements and evolution of analytical and critical language. the field is broad in scope and includes technical projects that seek to improve the resource efficiency of existing operations, the work of brands and designers to work within current priorities as well as those which look to fundamentally reimagine the fashion system differently, including the growth logic. in 2019, a group of researchers formed the union for concerned researchers in fashion to advocate for radical and co-ordinated research activity commensurate with the challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. in the fall of 2019, the ucrf received the north star award at the green carpet fashion awards, an organization focused on the promotion of sustainability in the fashion industry. as a non-profit organization focused on instigating debate and disseminating scholarly research, the ucrf believes that responses from the fashion industry regarding today's climate crisis has been oversimplified or obstructed by limited business models. according to one of the founders, the ucrf hopes that the award helps bring light to the issues that continually plague the fashion industry.