Many universities, or more generally institutions of higher education (IHEs), around the world have been centres of climate change research. However, there are a number of barriers to climate change research, related to both the nature of the research and the design of institutions. This paper uses a theoretical and empirical approach to identify those barriers and highlight the potential of IHEs to improve climate change research. It proposes possible actions for both those researching climate change at IHEs and the managers and administrators in IHEs. These suggestions will help universities to better support climate change research and, more importantly, support significant action on climate change. The barriers to climate change research in IHEs are well documented in the literature and are discussed briefly below to provide some context of the issues. The following section then discusses how considering the moral dimension of climate change can highlight the potential for IHEs to better address the climate change challenge. The empirical work detailed in the next sections reveals how universities face these barriers and seek to address them. The final section draws the theoretical and empirical studies together to produce future actions for universities and other IHEs to expand their role in addressing climate change.