NERC is pleased to announce the next round of Knowledge Exchange Call (KE Call), with a closing date of 4pm on 3 November 2010.
The Call’s aim is to promote the exchange of knowledge, people, skills and expertise between the research base and those in the user community who can make use of this.
To reflect NERC’s strategic alignment of knowledge exchange funding to key areas of impact and the implementation of its knowledge exchange programmes, we particularly welcome proposals in the following areas, and will be prioritising funding in these areas:
- Marine renewable energy
- Water security
- Financial services
– Environmental monitoring

Further information on the KE Call is at: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/using/schemes/kecall.asp.

NERC will run the KE Call and the KE Fellowships schemes together: applicants may submit a proposal to either of these schemes at the same time. Proposals may be linked, if appropriate, although they will be assessed separately as stand alone applications. Information on KE Fellowships is at: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/using/schemes/kefellows.asp.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering is championing a grass-roots campaign to save British science in the face of impending spending cuts. Those concerned about the potential cuts to the science budget, with Government Departments currently arguing behind closed doors about their budget allocations in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, can take action through the Science is Vital campaign. Supporters are asked to sign an online petition, write to their MP or join a protest march in Westminster on 9 October. More information is available from the Science is Vital website.

Defra has today published the Lawton Review of England’s protected areas and ecological network. Professor Sir John Lawton, who led the review, is a past-President of the BES.

From the Defra press release:

An independent review of England’s wildlife sites and the connections between them was published today, with recommendations to help achieve a healthy natural environment that will allow our plants and animals to thrive.

Led by Professor Sir John Lawton, the review was set up to look at our wildlife sites and whether they are capable of responding and adapting to the growing challenges of climate change and other demands on our land.

Welcoming the report, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said:

“I am extremely grateful to Professor Sir John Lawton and the other panel members for their hard work in carrying out this valuable review. Sir John Lawton is right to challenge us over what it takes to address the loss of biodiversity but he is also clear this cannot be done by Government alone. Everyone from farmers, wildlife groups, landowners and individuals can play a role in helping to create, manage and improve these areas, so if ever there was a time for the Big Society to protect our natural environment, this is it.

“We must work together to find innovative ways to protect and enhance our wildlife habitats – particularly as we respond to the growing threat of climate change. I will be calling for international action in Nagoya next month as we look to set new targets to tackle the decline in our natural environment, and we will follow this through with the first Natural Environment White Paper for 20 years in the UK.”

Launching the report, Professor Sir John Lawton said:

“There is compelling evidence that England’s collection of wildlife sites are generally too small and too isolated, leading to declines in many of England’s characteristic species. With climate change, the situation is likely to get worse. This is bad news for wildlife but also bad news for us, because the damage to nature also means our natural environment is less able to provide the many services upon which we depend. We need more space for nature. Our 24 recommendations in this report call for action which will benefit wildlife and people. They provide a repair manual to help re-build nature.”

The report makes the following key points for establishing a strong and connected natural environment:

That we better protect and manage our designated wildlife sites;
That we establish new Ecological Restoration Zones;
That we better protect our non-designated wildlife sites;
That Society’s need to maintain water-quality, manage inland flooding, deal with coastal erosion and enhance carbon storage, if thought about creatively, could help deliver a more effective ecological network.

We will not achieve a step-change in nature conservation in England without society accepting it to be necessary, desirable and achievable.

The report makes many recommendations and the Government response will be included in the Natural Environment White Paper to be published next year. Making Space for Nature will also help those that wish to contribute to the White Paper discussion document by the end of October to submit their ideas on what they want to see included.

The BES Policy Team will scrutinise the Review and would welcome comments on this from members. We are also preparing a response to the White Paper and would value members’ input.

Should news be presented as a ‘view from nowhere’ or should science journalists bring in their own opinions when reporting science stories? That was the central topic of a debate last night at the Royal Institution, chaired by Fiona Fox of the Science Media Centre. The panellists discussing the motion were Mark Henderson of the Times, Ceri Thomas, editor of the BBC R4 Today Programme, Steve Rayner, Professor of Science and Civilisation at Oxford University and Ed Yong, Information Manager at Cancer Research UK and a prominent communicator of science.

Mark Henderson viewed a science journalist’s job as absolutely to ’second guess what’s right’ and to be as accurate as possible when reporting. There’s a fundamental difference between balance and fairness, he said. Science journalists should strive to be fair, but lending equal weight to both sides of an argument when the evidence suggests otherwise is misleading. Mark suggested that having an opinion is helpful to good journalism, making reporters go the extra mile to research and find out the truth for themselves. As long as opinions are transparent they can be a force for good.

Ceri Thomas argued fundamentally against the idea that science journalists should take sides. This should happen no more than a political correspondent should take a side in favour of a particular political party, or a sports writer report in favour of a particular football team. Science doesn’t deserve special treatment. Yes, journalism should take the side of reason and evidence, and yes, this will often be in science’s favour, but scientists get it wrong if they think that reason and evidence are all that matters: emotional and irrational factors matter too, in reality, and so science needs to stand its ground in arguments with these. When news outlets such as the BBC give too much credence to the emotional/ irrational however, that’s when they are getting reporting wrong.

Steve Rayner made some very interesting points about how policy debates have been re-framed as debates about the quality of the science over the years. He highlighted climate change negotiations as a particular example, arguing that by 1992 climate change science, although flawed, provided evidence which was at least as strong as that which Governments use to justify making decisions on monetary and defence policy. Since then society has been debating the quality of the science but actually what we are really debating is how to move forward with difficult and differing policy options. It’s not the case that ‘more and better’ science will solve the seemingly intractable problem of how to tackle climate change, and actually, Steve argued, framing the solution to the problem in one particular way – via the Kyoto protocol – which he described as the result of ‘collusion’ by scientists and policy-makers – has prevented more innovative solutions being taken forward.

Ed Yong agreed largely with Mark Henderson, arguing that if a journalist didn’t provide analysis and context for their science report, someone else would – in the age of blogging and twitter, when anyone can have an opinion. It is the duty of journalists to state where the consenus lies. You can get a plurality of views without these necessarily having to be at extremes and at odds with one another. Overall, Ed argued, transparency and ‘taking sides with the truth’ were the most vital qualities in a piece of science journalism.

Amongst points raised through a very interesting discussion with the audience, Alok Jha, science writer with the Guardian, asked Mark whether it was in fact appropriate for science journalists to bring their opinions into their writing. This was fine if this was a writer trusted and known by the reader, but what if you were reading the work by someone you hadn’t come across before: how could you know whether their work was objective? Mark maintained that adding interpretation from the journalist could get the journalist, and the reader, closer to a nuanced understanding of the truth. Overall, Steve Rayner argued, we need to create a society where the public and policy-makers can make informed judgements themselves about science news, through general scientific literacy.

Mark Henderson is organising two more events in this series -one on genomics and one a post-Comprehensive Spending Review Q and A with David Willetts, Science Minister (26 October). See the RI website for details.

A group of researchers have called for urgent action to be taken to tackle invasive alien species in Europe, as reported on the BBC website (Pamela Rutherford) and this morning’s Today Programme. The researchers, meeting for a conference in Copenhagen, have urged the EU to adopt a Europe-wide policy by next year at the latest, aimed at tackling the economic and ecological damage wreaked on Europe’s indiginous wildlife by non-native invasive species.

Giving an interview to the BBC, the Chair of the Invasive Species Specialist Group said that the estimate of 12 billion EUR of damage caused by invasive alien species was likely to be a significant underestimate of the true cost because the economic value of the biodiversity lost through invasive species invasions was not included in this figure.

A 2008 inventory found 10,000 invasive non-native species in Europe, and colonisations have increased rapidly over the last 30 years.

At last week’s BES Annual Meeting in Leeds, delegates heard a presentation from CABI in which the preliminary results of the trial to combat Japanese Knotweed via biological control were discussed. The cost to combat the spread of Japanese Knotweed in the UK was estimated to be £1.56 billion presently. CABI has released a psyllid, Aphalara itadori, a natural enemy of the weed, at three paired sites in Southern England and is currently monitoring these sites intensively. Although few psyllids have been observed since release, researchers speculate that this is due to a dilution effect, with few psyllids released into the very large patches of Knotweed present. As a result CABI will carry out further releases of Aphalara, to create a higher psyllid density. Tests have shown that the psyllid is host specific so the research team is confident that further releases will have an effect.

Living with Environmental Change, the £1 billion cross-Research Council and Government Department research initiative, has established a Citizens Advisory Forum. The Forum, established with the Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre (Sciencewise-ERC), will help to inform the aims of the programme by allowing the public to comment on areas of environmental change which particularly concern them.

(From the Society of Biology weekly policy news update: 15 September)

Engaging the public in decision-making about their local areas is key to making sure that landscapes of the future are ‘landscapes of desire’; that was the key message of yesterday’s BES event at the British Science Festival. We were joined by a number of excellent speakers who each adopted a different perspective on future landscapes, exploring how the multiple demands a growing population will place on these spaces can be modelled, and how our landscapes may be managed to take these into account. The Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management partnered the BES in organising the event.

Prof. Roy Haines-Young, University of Nottingham, began the session with an overview of his work on scenario-building as part of the National Ecosystem Assessment. Prof. Haines-Young discussed how backcasting and forecasting can be used to explore people’s ‘landscapes of fear’ and provide different models for the development of ‘landscapes of desire’. Prof. Haines-Young argued that scenario-building is as much about stakeholder engagement and talking to people, as it is about computational modelling.

The theme of public engagement continued through the talks of Francis Hesketh, from TEP Environmental Consultants and Landscape Architects, and Prof. David Miller, Macaulay Land Use Research Institute. Francis discussed how green infrastructure can be used to enhance the experiences of those living in an area – providing mental and physical health benefits – as well as providing services such as urban cooling and flood amelioration. David introduced participants to the Virtual Landscape Theatre – an innovative piece of technology which allows the public to ‘fly’ through a virtual landscape – and how it can be used to seek people’s views about how they would like to see areas near them develop.

Mark Felton, Natural England, introduced the concept of the ‘perfect storm’ and the multitude of factors which will impinge upon our landscapes beyond 2030: from a growing population to climate change, an increasing demand for meat and milk from an increasingly affluent population, and enhanced demand for water – with less available. Mark illustrated how one farmer, working with Natural England, in the River Till catchment in Northumbria, has been able to increase profits whilst entering his land into an agri-environment scheme and so managing his land sustainbly – a potential model for widespread agricultural land use into the future.

A lively question and answer session followed – with over 70 people in the audience. One question concerned the Prime Minister’s ‘Big Society’ agenda: how can communities which aren’t engaged in their natural environment at present be relied upon to manage it voluntarily. Won’t this simply lead to an increasing cycle of disengagement and degradation of green spaces? Roy Haines-Young, chairing the session, acknowledged this as a real difficulty. Many people have lost their connection with nature – the only thing to do to tackle this is for us, as scientists and those concerned about the environment, to get out to hard to reach communities and convince people of nature’s value.

Our press release, with further details about the event, is available from the BES website.

The Virtual Landscape Theatre will be appearing at the British Science Festival all week, and is free to visit.

All the latest news from this week’s BES Annual Meeting (taking place until lunchtime on 9th September at the University of Leeds) is available on the BES Annual Meeting Blog. We’ve been making a splash in the media with features from the conference, with stories on migratory birds, bumblebees and marine renewable energy all hitting the headlines over the past few days.

Don’t forget that you can also stay up to date with news from the conference by following us on Twitter. Search for #bes2010.

The British Ecological Society’s annual meeting begins today at the University of Leeds. The meeting is Europe’s largest gathering of ecologists. Hundreds of scientific papers will be presented at the meeting. Highlights include:

The BES Lecture, given by Professor Andrew Watkinson, director of Living with Environmental Change and former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.
Society faces a range of challenges from climate change to biodiversity conservation. Addressing these challenges demands a robust evidence framework for action. In addition, research increasingly needs to be seen to stimulate the economy, particularly the green economy. In his lecture, entitled Making a difference: research with impact, Professor Watkinson will examine how researchers should respond to these challenges.

In his Presidential Address, BES President Professor Charles Godfray will discuss Mosquitoes, malaria and ecology, arguing that ecology is critical for successfully controlling diseases spread by insects. We know surprisingly little about the ecology of major insect vectors of malaria in Africa, what they eat and how their populations are regulated. Professor Godfray will describe recent novel ideas for controlling mosquito vectors of malaria, and explore how ecological sciences can assist in their deployment.

Ecologists will report new findings on how inbreeding among bumblebees in the Western Isles of Scotland could be increasing their risk of extinction; explain why white-clawed crayfish from running water are thinner than those living in still water – information vital to saving this species from extinction in England and Wales; and reveal new ways of monitoring the impacts of Wave Hub, a site off Cornwall where wave energy converters are tested.

The BES team will be blogging from the annual meeting, at http://britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2010am/. You can also follow news from the meeting on Twitter (#BES2010).

Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientist at Defra, will state that Britain’s carbon footprint has grown, not shrunk, since 1990, in a BBC Radio 4 documentary next Monday (6th September). Professor Watson will say that calculations taking into account the carbon embedded in products which Britain imports, from countries such as China and India, reveal that Britain’s emissions have grown by 12%, not declined by 15-16% as current accounting proceedures show. Under the current system of counting emissions, greenhouse gases generated in the manufacture of goods are assessed in the country of production, not consumption.

A spokesman from the Department for Energy and Climate Change said “Our position is that greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 22% since 1990. While some emission reductions have resulted from the trend for manufacturing to move overseas, international rules state that emissions from manufacturing are counted by the country of production”.

In the documentary, ‘Uncertain Climate’, Prof. Watson will urge the Government to ‘be more open’ about the carbon accounting proceedure and what the emission reduction figures do and do not cover.

Original Source: Joel Taylor, Metro, 3 September