The Science Behind the Policy

NERC or the Natural Environment Research Council, is a UK based organisation that funds world-class science to increase knowledge of nature’s processes, understand climate change, biodiversity and natural hazards. CEO, Professor Alan Thorpe talks to Projects about the organisation, climate change and the follow-up to Kyoto.

NERC is an investment powerhouse for science in terms of its ability to fund environmental research with a budget of £400 million. The research it targets is science that can have a practical conversion and so much of the work is aimed specifically at arming policy makers with facts for arguments for policy proposals. NERC’s five-year strategy was published in 2007 under the title Next Generation Science for Planet Earth and covers themes such as the climate system, biodiversity, natural hazards, and the sustainable use of natural resources.

The funding mechanism starts with a science innovation strategy board composed of scientists in the environmental science community who examine suggestions and ultimately make a proposal to the council – NERC’s governing body – and they agree to allocate funding to particular research programmes that deliver on the priorities. Research programmes are typically delivered by announcing opportunities for which scientists put forward proposals, which are then assessed by an international peer review for relevance and decide whether to fun them or not. A lengthy process, but it ensures that the right proposals are funded.

However, NERC also has the capability to respond to more urgent scientific needs. Alan Thorpe, CEO of NERC, outlines cases where immediate response was required for such research: “We have, as a research council, a number of research centres such as the British Antarctic Survey, the British Geological Survey, the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology, the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton and we employ NERC scientists in these centres so when there are national emergencies they can act quickly to help where it is needed. I’ll give you an example – the Buncefield fire at an oil depot in 2005. We have a research aircraft at the MET office that’s run out of our national centre for atmospheric science and that was mobilised to make measurements of the plume to check for what is was composed of to see if it had any toxic elements to it. So we can do those sort of things rapidly. After the Indian tsunami for example, our oceanography centre had scientists on board a Royal Navy ship afterwards to see if we could understand the underwater earthquake that led to the tsunami.

“So we have in our centres the capability to act quickly and we also have various grant schemes for what we call urgency grants where if there are time limited opportunities for doing science we will fast track those proposals and have them peer reviewed quickly to enable those opportunities to be taken up.
“But our primary role is that of a research council to support research and basic knowledge generation. We are not, in that sense, perceived as an operational agency. There are other agencies like that such as the MET office and the environment agency.

“A number of our centres do work for the public good as well as in their scientific role. So, for example, the British Geological Survey will provide survey information for the home owners packs – a service for when someone moves house – and part of what you get is an assessment of the stability of the land under the
house you are going to move in to – and that is provided at a cost from the British Geological Survey. So it’s significant that an element of what we do is for the public good and safety, which is a role we take on, but this is not our primary function.”
Research needed for policy

The larger and further reaching role that NERC undertakes is to equip government departments with scientific information generated from a network of universities and institutes and to keep this communication channel open and useful. This way science can influence and generate new policy and add tangible value and have an impact on future policy. Thorpe elaborates: “Take climate change, on which a lot of our research is focused. We have quite a number of routes by which we make sure that knowledge as it is produced is made available and we update DEFRA (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and also DEC (Disasters Emergencies Committee), with information on climate change so they can use that knowledge in policy making. We make sure the knowledge is there for their evidence to create policy.”

The follow-on from the now landmark Kyoto protocol will be the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen on 7 December this year when 15,000 officials from 200 countries will gather in the Danish capital with a singular aim to find a solution to global warming. It has been hailed as one of the most important meetings of minds in history and has the potential to change the world. NERC’s role in supplying the elements of the science for the debates and arguments that will be levied at Heads of State, Government ministers and the most powerful people in the world will be crucial to the direction of decisions made.

Published: Friday, 6th November 2009

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