NEST's greatest strength lies in the abundance of highly qualified researchers from the social and natural sciences among its membership, who can be readily mobilized for project execution. The approach to many of the research projects has been interdisciplinary, combining scientific methods of data gathering and analysis with qualitative methods that are consultative and participatory, to ensure representativeness across disciplines, gender and geographical regions.
The earliest research efforts sought to describe the basic status of the Nigerian environment and its care, and culminated in the publication of Nigeria's Threatened Environment: A National Profile and its companion volume, The Challenge of Sustainable Development in Nigeria, by which the organization is perhaps best known. Commissioned research has included the study of land degradation in Nigeria at the instance of the Commonwealth Foundation for Technical Cooperation, a survey of NGOs in Nigeria sponsored by the Ford Foundation and a study of soil erosion in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria, commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Lagos.
