A call for specific biodiversity goals to be integrated into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was abandoned at the insistence of Germany during a meeting of environment ministers in Brussels today (19 December).

In its proposal for a biodiversity strategy to 2020, the European Commission had listed several types of biodiversity concerns that should be dealt with under the CAP. But several member states objected to this, saying it prejudged the outcome of ongoing talks among agriculture ministers to reform the CAP.

The Polish presidency of the Council of Ministers put forward a proposal changing the list to theoretical “examples,” but this was still not acceptable to Germany. After several hours of discussion, Germany succeeded in having the entire paragraph on biodiversity objectives for the CAP deleted in the final version approved by ministers. Germany’s environment ministry was under strict orders from its agriculture ministry not to accept any list of possible biodiversity requirements for CAP, according to a source involved in the discussions.

Campaign group BirdLife Europe said the deletion was symptomatic of an overall fear by environment ministers of clashing with ongoing discussions in other Council meetings. The UK was able to water down language on funding for the environmental funding programme Life, saying it prejudges ongoing discussions over the multiannual financial framework. Language on fisheries was also made vaguer.

Ariel Brunner, head of European policy at BirdLife, said the decision was a worrying sign that environmental goals would not be taken seriously in upcoming discussions on agriculture, fisheries and budget reform. “Looking at environment ministers compromising for hours on the protection of what should be the core of their political mandate – biodiversity – is a dangerous preview of the fate of biodiversity left completely in the hands of agriculture ministers,” she said.

Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for the environment, issued a statement condemning the deletion of the list, adding that the Commission would continue to push for biodiversity objectives to be made part of the CAP during the reform discussions.

Original text from: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/december/reference-to-cap-in-biodiversity-conclusions-deleted-/73015.aspx

This post first appeared on the Biochemical Society’s Blog

Policy Lunchbox was privileged on Friday to host the first presentation on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ (BIS) new Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth since its launch last Thursday. Grant Peggie, Head of Innovation and Investment at BIS, gave a run down of the key points to the assembled members of the Policy Lunchbox community over mince pies and mulled wine. Here’s a summary of what he had to say.

Whilst the UK is host to world class researchers and punches above its weight in terms of pure research output, we are not as good at encouraging and developing strategic partnerships with the rest of the ‘innovation ecosystem’ – compared to near neighbours such as France, Germany and Sweden, and also other countries like the USA, said Grant. As well as places where research takes place, business, finance and bodies such as standards offices must all work together to support ‘innovation for growth’. Grant also emphasised that policy makers need to understand that it is important for innovation to take place in all sectors – not just in traditional areas like high-tech industry – including fields like utilities and construction.

The Strategy document sets out medium and long term mechanisms through which the government intends to support innovation for growth, having identified it as something we need to exploit. The timescale (as laid out in a section at the end of the document) for instigating all the projects goes no further than 2015, as the government has been unwilling to commit to longer term plans during this lasting period of austerity. However, Grant was reassuring when questioned about short-termism, stating that the announced Technology Strategy Board (TSB) focus areas – such as graphene development – would have lasting legacies. For example, the Graphene Global Research and Innovation Hub (possibly to be established in Manchester, although the location decision rests with the TSB and Research Councils in accordance with the Haldane principle) should be operational within four years, by which time some of the other policies laid out in the document should help support its long-term activity. The Government has committed £50m to graphene research through the spending review period and has pinned hopes on profitable applications being developed in the UK.

On the other strategic areas highlighted, we heard that the location of a new ‘Cell Therapy Catapult Centre’ (the less said about this moniker the better) in London would be decided next year, although there was pressure to land it in East London. This will also be the home of the Open Data Institute, to be founded in Shoreditch and led by Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Sir Tim Berners-Lee. People will notice that this isn’t actually a new announcement, and indeed Grant admitted that not much of the chapter from which this announcement and several others can be found (entitled ‘Knowledge and Innovation’) is actually new, but sets out what the Government has committed to since this spring/summer. How the Institute will fit in with the opening up of NHS data announced by David Cameron as part of the new Strategy for UK Life Sciences remains to be seen. The datasets to be prioritised have been named as transport, weather and health.

Concerning the Research Councils, changes are afoot. Multi-institutional bids for funding will be allowed according to a framework to be published in February, providing new opportunities for consortia such as the N8 group (the Universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York) to apply for funding together. Furthermore, groups such as charities not based within Universities will also be able to apply for funding. This means that there will be more funding streams, although there won’t be more money up for grabs. Particularly regarding the new rules on consortia, this could lead to very large funding awards being made, with one potential knock-on effect being the restriction of traditional award recipients even further – in what are already straitened times. Grant agreed that this was a risk, although this policy did come out of consultation with universities. Another outcome could be on the institutional and geographical spread of awards, which are already a contentious issue. On the other side, it is hoped that larger, consortia based funding could lead to more matched funding bids from pharmaceutical companies. These changes will certainly need to be follow closely next year. The Research Councils have also agreed to invest £2 million in the development of a UK ‘Gateway to Research’. Plans remain sketchy, but should allow open access to Research Council funded research data and other information by 2013. The scheme aims to be flexible and allow for non-Research Council research to be catalogued here too. This has the potential to be a really exciting and useful resource – if they get it right regarding the usability of data – especially for publicising research which could be commercialised. Smaller companies without extensive access to horizon-scanning resources could have greatly improved access and more business relationships may arise.

The bottom line, what else is new, and forthcoming work

In total, according to BIS figures, we heard that £610 million has been committed to capital in science since January. The headline announcements new to this Statement are highlighted in the BIS press release. However, as already alluded to, there is no ’10 year plan’ or similar long-term vision as the science community would like to see, representing a real long-term commitment to science as a driver of growth. We may expect reassessments to be made towards the end of the spending review period (ending in 2015).

Some of the other plans we received a run-down of are:

-The Economics Paper published alongside the main strategy document focuses on innovation (and is the first to do so since the mid ‘90s) and Grant revealed that a separate analysis of science would be published next year.
- As well as Cell Therapy, the other Catapult Centres will be High Value Manufacturing and Offshore Renewable Energy, with three more to be confirmed.
- The previously announced Biomedical Catalyst Fund will total £180 million, half each from the TSB and the Medical Research Council (MRC). This fund will be focussed on commercial medicine and proof of concept research. The TSB investment was newly announced in the Strategy for UK Life Sciences released earlier in the week.
-There will be an extra £75 million for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) through the resurrected Smart scheme – to come from the TSB – as first announced in the Autumn Statement. The TSB will also implement a new innovation voucher programme to support collaboration between SMEs and external knowledge providers. The first vouchers will be awarded next year.
- The Launchpad initiative will be extended – providing intensive support for specific sectoral clusters in chosen locations, with the aim of attracting follow-up ‘angel investment’. Grant hinted that a life science Launchpad was being considered for the Scottish central belt.
-The Red Tape Challenge will be extended, investigating the bureaucratic barriers that inhibit innovation – including those set by government. Further challenges identified are the barriers posed by procurement methods.
-Tax credits to incentivise research and development in the UK will be introduced in Budget 2013.
- The TSB will gain more staff to make sure we can leverage as much EU funding as possible in the future.
- We are going to embark on a joint research agreement with China, funding bi-lateral projects. Joint research calls with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology are expected during 2012.

The delivery plan makes it clear that all the policies must be followed through, although the mechanisms have not yet been decided.

Naturally, Grant wanted to highlight all the positives of the Strategy, but as he said, having RCUK and the CBI saying good things is a good sign that they seem to have hit several right notes. And, whilst the Strategy certainly emphasises innovation rather than research, Grant explained that the rationale for this was two-fold: firstly that there was no desire to “throw research up in the air again”; and secondly that whilst research is a vital strength of the UK, innovation is in greater need of attention, particularly concerning commercial exploitation.

Last word – still no commitment on postgraduates

Grant was candid when asked about the lack of focus on post-graduates in recent government publications, acknowledging this point but regrettably not revealing any firm intention for anything to be done. However, he reported strong awareness that this is a live issue, citing the influence of Twitter as a significant pressure for a concerted effort from BIS in this area.

Related reading

Innovation and Research Strategy, and Economics Paper: http://www.bis.gov.uk/innovatingforgrowth
Strategy for UK Life Sciences: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/innovation/docs/s/11-1429-strategy-for-uk-life-sciences
Autumn Statement: http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/autumn_statement.pdf

Policy Lunchbox is a network of policy professionals from the charitable and third sectors maintained by the Biochemical and British Ecological Societies.

Professor Charles Godfray, immediate past President of the BES, is to give evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday 14th December as part of the Committee’s inquiry into ‘Greening the Common Agricultural Policy‘.

Professor Godfray will give evidence at 16.00 and the session will be available to watch live on Parliament TV.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced a review of the implementation of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives in the UK. Following the announcement of the review by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons, Defra have released details of the scope of the consultation, which will publish conclusions by the date of the 2012 budget, in March.

The purpose of the review is to assess: ‘the Habitats and Wild Bird Directives as currently implemented in England by the Habitats Regulations and Offshore Marine Conservation Regulations, focussing in particular on those obligations that affect the authorisation process for proposed development, with a view to reducing the burdens on businesses while maintaining the integrity of the purpose of the directives.’

The Habitats and Birds Directives are therefore presented as barriers to economic growth. Two of the areas of focus for the review include:
- Whether the approach taken by competent authorities is appropriate, particularly in relation to risk, or whether the requirements of the legislation are applied too or insufficiently rigorously; and whether competent authorities and statutory conservation advisers could explore more creative solutions; and
- Whether NE and JNCC’s approach to the provision of advice to competent authorities is appropriate, or takes an excessively or insufficiently precautionary approach.

The Government intends to examine other European Member States for examples of best practice in implementing the Directives and where the UK could learn from others’ experience in terms of applying the Directives whilst avoiding excessive burdens to business.

Wildlife and Countryside Link, of which the BES is a member, are in the process of establishing a taskforce to feed into the Review, with the aim of reporting by January 2012.

Intensive farming methods have simplified landscapes across Europe, leading to a loss of biodiversity. A recent study has investigated the effects of intensive farming on plants, beetles and birds in Western European regions and found that plants and birds are particularly affected.

In recent decades, changes in agricultural practices have transformed the structure of landscapes across Europe, particularly in the West. Intensification of agriculture has simplified a previously complex landscape, which has been accompanied by a loss of biodiversity in European farmlands. Agricultural intensification (AI) affects biodiversity at all levels of the landscape, from field and farm levels, through to the regional scale.

In this study, the diversity of plants, ground beetles (carabids) and breeding birds was measured at local and regional levels in cereal crop fields in eight European countries: Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden. The total diversity of species at field, farm and regional scales was estimated from the average diversity within communities and from the average diversity between different communities at all three scales.

AI was estimated from fertiliser and pesticide inputs, tillage operations and mechanical weed control used by farmers in the study areas. Based on this information, AI was divided into low, medium and high levels in each region and the impact of AI on biodiversity in the landscape was assessed.

For all regions studied at all three scales (field, farm and regional), AI was linked to reduced diversity of plants and birds, but not ground beetles. This suggests the impact of AI on biodiversity is not uniform and some groups of species are more affected than others. In addition, how mobile the different groups of species are, plays an important role in the pattern of diversity found across the landscape.

• High levels of AI affected plants at all scales: plants are not mobile and the more simplified the landscape became (with associated loss of diverse habitats), the greater the loss of plant diversity.
• High levels of AI especially affected birds at the farm and region scale. However, with low levels of AI, the diversity of birds was increased. Less intensive agricultural management of fields (e.g. less weed control), maintaining a diversity of field margins (such as hedgerows and woodland) and providing semi-natural habitats in arable landscapes are all important for bird diversity.
• Ground beetle diversity found within fields probably benefitted from having various types of field margins and near-by semi-natural areas, which would supply habitats for new recruits of beetles to the fields.

Although the level of intensive agriculture practised locally by farmers affected species diversity at the field scale, biodiversity (especially of birds and ground beetles) found among different communities at the farm scale was more important in terms of regional biodiversity. Therefore, different local farming practices significantly affect the pattern of the landscape structure and the biodiversity found in agricultural landscapes.

Understanding the detailed impacts of AI on different groups of species at field, farm and regional scales is important for the development of effective agri-environmental schemes. Resources can be targeted at areas where high levels of diversity occur and would be affected by a further simplification of the landscape structure through high intensity farming methods.

Source: Flohre, A., Fischer, C., Aavik, T. et al. (2011) Agricultural intensification and biodiversity partitioning in European landscapes comparing plants, carabids, and birds. Ecological Applications. 21: 1772-1781.

[Taken from Science for Environment Policy]

The Marine Reserves Coalition will be hosting a meeting entitled ‘PROTECTING UK WATERS AND BEYOND – LEARNING FROM THE MPA PROCESS IN NEW ZEALAND’.

The talks will take place on the 7th December 2011 at 1800 in the Huxley Lecture Theatre at ZSL and all are welcome, so please feel free to pass this invite on to anyone you think would be interested.

There will be three presentations followed by a discussion session:

MPAs – The NZ perspective: Jonathan Gardner (NZ-UK Link Foundation Visiting Professorship, Victoria University of Wellington)
MPAs – The UK perspective: Sue Wells (Project Manager, Balanced Seas)
MPAs – The big picture: Dan Laffoley (Senior Advisor, Marine Science and Conservation, Global Marine and Polar Programme, IUCN)

After the talks there will be an informal wine reception with canapés from 2000-2130.

Places for this evening event are limited to 100, and will be on a first come, first served basis, so please arrive promptly.

Contact Elisabeth Whitebread for further information.

Oliver Pescott, current BES Fellow at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, has published a POSTnote on ‘Natural Flood Management’. This will be available shortly on the BES website.

Flood risk management today uses a range of approaches to reduce risk, including structural works, such as hard flood defences, and non-structural approaches, such as improving flood warning systems and land-use planning. The restoration, alteration and use of natural landscape features are also receiving attention as potentially cost-effective ways of reducing flood risk that can provide other environmental benefits, such as water quality improvements or carbon storage.

The POSTnote will be launched formally in Parliament on Tuesday 17th January, from 4 – 6pm. The event will be chaired by Anne Macintosh MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Flood Protection and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. Presentations from a number of speakers will discuss key issues in Natural Flood Management:

– Martin Whiting, Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, Rivers & Coastal Group Chair
- Dr Neil McIntyre, Reader in Surface Water Hydrology, Imperial College London
- Dr Paul Quinn, Senior Lecturer in Catchment Hydrology, Newcastle University
- Dr Wendy Kenyon, Senior Researcher, James Hutton Institute (Land and Natural Resource Use Research)

To register your interest in attending, please email postevents@parliament.uk or call 020 7219 8377.