Quercus Project
Outcome
A research-institution website for a biodiversity and ecology programme — accessible and built to the standard the academic sector expects but rarely gets.
Client Context
The Quercus Project is a biodiversity and ecology research programme led by Prof. Marcus Franzen, focused on insect diversity, habitat monitoring, and ecological data. The site serves academic peers, funding bodies, and the wider public interested in biodiversity science. Credibility, accessibility, and professional presentation were non-negotiable.
Challenge
Academic and research websites carry implicit credibility expectations — they are read by funders, institutional reviewers, and peer scientists. The site needed to project institutional authority while remaining maintainable by a small research team with no dedicated web staff. Full WCAG accessibility compliance was a requirement, not a nice-to-have.
Build
Drupal 10 with a structured content architecture for research projects, publications, field-site data, and team profiles. Full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance built into the theme layer — not retrofitted. The unified page model (stacked landing pages for the home and main sections; flat article pages for publications and news) keeps editorial workflows simple.
Stack
Data Sources
Editorially managed content — no live external data integration on this build.
Notable
WCAG compliance at this level — tested, not declared — is rare in the academic sector, where assistive-technology users are disproportionately represented (disability, ageing researchers, screen-reader use in fieldwork). We treat it as a baseline, not an add-on. The Quercus site is the clearest proof that accessible Drupal at this price point is not a compromise.
Site URL