The BES Ecology and Policy Blog has been picked to feature on the list of the ‘Top 50 Public Policy Bloggers’, by the ‘Policy Police’, a site which scans the public policy blogosphere. The list includes categories on General Politics, Environment and Energy, Poverty and Homelessness, Education, Food and Drug and Health Care. See the full list here.

Four years ago the European Commission’s annual ‘Green Week’ conference examined the progress towards the target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010, carrying a positive “Biodiversity is Life!” strapline. Speaking for the UK’s Labour Government, the then Minister in charge of biodiversity, Barry Gardiner MP questioned the general public’s awareness of biodiversity loss, not to mention the apparent lack of understanding of what the term actually meant. Four years on, in the context of the International Year of Biodiversity, this year’s ‘Green Week’ fittingly brings biodiversity back into the spotlight. The conference provides a forum for a week of investigation into how to take the EU’s biodiversity policy forward post-2010.

Three days of discussion will address the pressing issues affecting Europe’s nature – what new policy responses are needed? How can the EU best value the remaining resource and measure the ecosystem services the continent’s nature provides? How can it properly maintain and expand its now long-established Natura 2000 network? 3,800 delegates from the public, charity, scientific, academic and business communities are joining representatives from the EU institutions to answer these questions.

Amongst the opening presentations was a speech by the European Environment Agency’s Executive Director Dr Jacqueline McGlade, who unveiled a new Biodiversity Information System for Europe (BISE), which centralises information about European biodiversity in a new web portal. Combined with the new Biodiversity Baseline, which provides a shapshot of the current state of biodiversity, the EEA and European Commission hope this partnership project will make the monitoring of progress towards renewed efforts to halt biodiversity loss a lot easier.

To catch up on the week’s activities, the Green Week 2010 website has details of the thirty sessions taking place, with video links to many of the proceedings.

This week, as part of the Radio 4 series ‘Costing the Earth’, presenter Tom Heap interviewed various people who are interested in the idea of putting a price on nature.

Ian Bateman from the National Ecosystem Assessment explained how this project aims to use scientific assessment to put monetary value on the natural environment. This is important because decision makers need quantified information to be able to properly consider the trade offs of different decisions. Steven Trotter from Warwickshire Wildlife Trust gave the example of the planned development of a high speed rail link between Birmingham and London which will cut through an area of ancient woodland: the woodland is under threat because nature is not considered on an equal basis with the business case for development.

Pavan Sukhdev explained how The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study organises research into the valuation of global ecosystems so that policy-makers can use this in practice to assess the value of an area of land. Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation appreciated the importance of valuing ecosystems but warned of the dangers relating to the fact that pricing works on a short timescale whereas impacts on natural environments can work on a much longer timescale. In order to avoid degradation of ecosystems just because someone can afford to do it, it will be essential to create science based boundaries to cap the use of resources. Andy Atkins from Friends of the Earth expressed his concerns that focussing on the value of nature will detract from dealing with the root causes of destruction.

Tom Heap concluded by saying that it may be hard for people to accept that the implementation of a valuation approach to natural habitats will increase the cost of living, but this would be better than the current situation where these costs are being picked up by future generations and poor countries through destroying habitats for agriculture and importing food.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering, of which the BES is a member, is organising a debate on 13 January 2010 between the science spokespeople of the three major UK political parties. Lord Drayson, Science Minister, Adam Afriye, Shadow Science Minister and Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat Science Spokesman, will speak at the Institute of Engineering and Technology from 6.30pm. Members of the BES and others interested are encouraged to attend.

This event is free but registration is necessary. on registration there is an opportunity to submit a question to put to the speakers. See the CaSE website for further details.

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn MP, is due to address policy-makers assembled at the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen today, as part of ‘Oceans Day’. The Secretary of State is due to highlight the dangers posed to marine life and human well-being by ocean acidification, and the limited attention which this issue receives compared to others being discussed by climate change negotiators.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now 30% higher than during pre-industrial times. A proportion of the carbon dioxide which has entered the atmosphere over the past 200 years has been absorbed by the oceans – with constant gaseous exchange between the seas and air. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, carbonic acid is formed, which dissociates into hydrogen and carbonate ions. The Ph of the ocean, measuring hydrogen ion concentration and hence acidity, is now 0.1 unit lower, with a total decrease of 0.3 or 0.4 Ph units expected by the end of the century. An increase in the acidity of the seas will affect the ability of corals and other organisms to build calcium carbonate shells; studies have shown that coral growth in the Great Barrier Reef is already slowing.

Mr Benn told the BBC News that ocean acidification “doesn’t get as much attention as other problems; it is really important”. Destruction of corals will affect all those who depend on the reefs – from the fish which forage there to the populations which depend on these fish for protein; over 1 bilion people worldwide. He will recommend to policy-makers today that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) investigates ocean acidification during its next major assessment of world climate, scheduled for release in 2013.

Original source; ‘Acidifying oceans’ threaten food supply, UK warns, Richard Black, BBC News Website

Last night, the BES Policy Team attended the CaSE Annual Distinguished Lecture, given this year by Prof. John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Advisor. Over the course of the hour, Prof. Beddington gave a wide-ranging talk, covering the swine flu epidemic and how structures set up in Government had helped to deal with this; the ‘perfect storm’ of factors with the potential to threaten human health and well-being by 2030, and finishing with a discussion of the Government’s Foresight horizon-scanning programme.

Prof. Beddington began the lecture with a discussion of one aspect of his role; head of the science and engineering population in Government. The perception in the past had been that betraying your background in science and engineering as a civil-servant would be tatamount to career suicide and that there had existed a ‘glass-ceiling’ for scientists and engineers in government. Prof. Beddington said that he was working hard to change this, with the result that around 3,000 of the estimated 16 – 18,000 scientifically trained and qualified people working in government had now come forward. Prof. Beddington had organised a number of workshops to bring many of these people together to explore issues such as communicating science and engineering to policy-makers.

Prof. Beddington’s slides illustrating the spread of swine flu were alarming; showing the rapid transmission disease through our modern globally-connected population, but perhaps of most interest to BES members was the section of his talk outlining the challenges we face due to a ‘perfect storm’ of factors. By 2030, we need 50% more food production, to feed a population set to reach 8.3 million people, on less land, with less water, using less energy, fertiliser and pesticide, whilst not increasing greenhouse gas emissions. This is obviously a huge challenge for society to meet but Prof. Beddington said that he was optimistic we would do so.

The negotiations currently ongoing in Copenhagen, he said, were crucical to start us on a path to meet the challenge of climate change: anything more than 2 degrees centigrade of warming would be catastrophic to life as we know it, as Prof. Beddington’s slides illustrated. With an increase of 4 degrees, maize and wheat yields in Africa could decline by 40%; changes in rainfall patterns could mean that California (responsible for 50% of the USA’s agricultural production) could no longer produce food, and in Europe, there would be a 70% reduction in river and stream flow, rendering the Mediterranean uninhabitable and leading to mass migration.

During the question and answer session, Prof. Beddington was asked, perhaps unsuprisingly, for his view on the £600 million cut to research funding announced in the pre-budget report. Prof. Beddington said that he had stressed, and would continue to do so, that the only way forward for the UK was to continue to invest in science and engineering. He said that the pre-budget report was ‘ambiguous’, in terms of where cuts would fall and that the Government would at least maintain their commitment to the ten-year Science and Innovation Investment Framework (due to expire in 2014). He said that if this tracked GDP this would lead to a small drop in the science budget, as GDP had fallen. However, the forthcoming review of student fees may lead to an additional source of revenue for universities in time.

Members of the audience were aware that the forthcoming election would bring a turnover in MPs, with many of those who have championed science in parliament over the years, standing down. What could Prof. Beddington do to promote science amongst the new cohort of parliamentarians? Prof. Beddington answered that he could do little apart from make sure that he is available to speak to those MPs who wish to consult him on scientific matters and make himself available to Select Committees. He did however contast the UK with Japan, where five members of the cabinet are scientifically trained, including the Prime Minister, who has a PhD related to science and technology.

CaSE is organising a debate in London between the science spokespeople of the three main UK political parties. To find out more about this event or book (free) tickets, taking place on 13th January 2010, see the CaSE website.

Yesterday afternoon the BES attended a workshop organised by Research Councils UK (RCUK) aimed at exploring how Learned Societies and Research Councils can better work together to convince Government and wider society about the importance of sustained investment in science and technology. Over 120 representatives from Learned Societies, the majority from the arts and humanities sector, met at the Royal Society in London to begin dialogue.

Presentations at the start of the afternoon emphasised the strength of the UK research base. For example, the UK has 1% of the world’s population but 14% of the world’s most highly cited academic publications. We punch well above our weight in terms of academic excellence: the UK is first amongst the G8 group of nations in terms of publication productivity. Yet, said Prof. Alan Thorpe, Chair of RCUK, we are living in extraordinary times. Wednesday’s pre-budget report emphasised that research funding is not safe from cuts and the research community must do all it can to make the case for investment in science and technology going into the next election and the comprehensive spending review. Chancellor Alastair Darling announced that £600 million is to be cut from research funding, in areas not related to student support, in 2012/13. It’s not yet clear whether this will be a cut to the budgets of the Research Councils directly, or a reduction in ‘QR’ (Quality Related) funding distributed to universities by the Higher Education Funding Councils. Although representing only 4-5% of the budget for research in the UK. this nevertheless signals the importance of Learned Societies and others making the case to government.

Over the course of the afternoon it became clear that the arts and humanities sector is extremely concerned about the shift towards measures of ‘impact’ by the Research Councils and in the Research Excellence Framework; conversation in the break out groups and during the tea and coffee breaks was largely dominated by this. Some suggestions were made to the sector in the report-back session: to demonstrate impact in terms of natural heritage for example. The STEM sector perhaps has less to worry about in relation to demonstrating impact, and yet big questions remain over how impact can be attributed, tracked and measured with any accuracy. RCUK urged participants to watch carefully the progress of the HEFCE impact pilot exercise.

To sum up the session, Prof. Thorpe urged Learned Societies to engage with RCUK in moving forwards; sending case studies demonstrating the impact of research to the Research Councils, engaging with local MPs – offering site visits for example – and communicating research excellence to the public.

It was clear to me that many of the arts and humanities Learned Societies represented around the room were extremely small, lacking a staff base and the policy resources which societies in the STEM sector, like the BES, have. Certainly for them, engaging with RCUK offers a route to communicate the impact of their research to policy-makers. The British Academy also has a new Policy Unit which can help in this respect. The STEM sector in contrast is well-served by bodies such as the Society of Biology and Campaign for Science and Engineering, which can help smaller organisations in the biosciences to communicate with a single voice, stressing the importance of sustained investment in science and technology as a way out of recession.

Lord Mandelson is to set out the Government’s plan for the future of universities today, with a statement to the House of Commons expected at 3pm. Lord Mandelson is expected to emphasise the Government’s desire to build greater links between universities and business, seeing higher education as a way to reinvigorate the economy.

Speaking on this morning’s ‘Today’ programme, Lord Mandelson outlined his plan, which will be focused around three main areas: giving students more consumer-style information; improving social mobility and access to the professions by those from poorer backgrounds and aiding economic recovery.

Universities are to be told to treat students more like customers, allowing them to see how their fees are being used. Each university will be asked to publish course-by-course graduate employment rates, teaching time and drop out rates. This is widely interpreted as a precursor to raising tuition fees for students. A review of student tuition fees is expected to be launched within the next few weeks and will report after the general election.

Speaking on ‘Today’, Lord Mandelson said that research needed to be concentrated on providing economic benefits. Where extra degree places are provided by universities, these should be focused on ‘STEM’ (Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths) subjects, he said.

Further information:
Mandelson to announce plans to modernise ‘ivory tower’ universities (Guardian)
Vision for universities laid out (BBC News)

An interesting piece in the New York Times (October 26th) explores whether ‘biotech foods can explore the world’. Six experts, from economics, agriculture and policy, deliver their views on whether GM provides an answer to projected food shortages. The United Nations estimates that the number of people hungry worldwide could surpass 1 billion this year. Can GM help to feed a growing population, in the context of climate change and environmental degradation?

Professor Paul Collier, University of Oxford and author of “The Bottom Billion”, believes that climate change has made the use of GM technology inevitable. Describing GM as akin to ‘nuclear power; nobody loves it’, Prof. Collier states that GM offers both faster crop adaptation and a ‘biological, rather than chemical’ approach to increasing yields. Professor Collier delivered the BES Lecture at this year’s BES Annual Meeting (September, University of Hertfordshire).

Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, an NGO and movement of 500,000 seed keepers and organic farmers in India, argues that climate resilient traits don’t have to come from genetic engineering, citing artificial selection practised by farmers for centuries as a means of creating these attributes. Describing seed banks, such as those maintained by Navdanya, as ‘biological capital for the green revolution’, Vandana Shiva states that society must create an ecological approach to boosting production and conserving resources, working with smallholder farmers.

Per Pinstrup-Anderson, Cornell University, sees science as playing a key role in helping farmers to grow more food, without damaging natural resources: “Science must be put to work to develop drought tolerance and pest resistance in crops, higher nutrient quality of staple foods, reduced animal diseases, mitigation of negative climate change effects and a host of other solutions to the current food losses and risks facing farmers and consumers in developing countries.” He sees GM technology, used appropriately, as part of this science-led solution.

Raj Patel, a fellow of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, believes that GM crops may not necessarily be the answer, citing a report prepared by a task-force led by Professor Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Advisor at Defra and previously Chief Scientist at the World Bank. “Agriculture at a Crossroads”, produced by 400 experts between 2005-2008, expressed concern that GM had failed to show promise and stressed that to feed the world, political and technological change are necessary. ‘Agroecology’ is one of the farming techniques endorsed by the report – building soil, insect and plant ecology. Mr Patel expresses disappointment that agroecology has not been endorsed by Governments, suggesting this may be because it is not lucrative for big business.

Finally, Jonathan Foley, University of Minnesota, expresses his view that the careful use of GM crops may be appropriate. How can civilisation double food production in the next 40 years, given continued population growth, increasing meat consumption and pressure from biofuels? We need to reduce the environmental impact of our farming methods, which have caused widespread damage to soils, ecosystems, watersheds and the atmosphere. Jonathan Foley suggests that society needs to find a ‘third way’, borrowing from ‘organic and local’ and ‘globalised and industrialised’ systems. A new ‘hybrid solution’ which boosts productivity, conserves resources and builds a more scalable and sustainable agriculture is necessary. Incorporating GM crops which use less water and require less fertiliser could be a part of this.

Original article: New York Times, 26 October 2009

Summary from: SciDev.net, 2 November 2009

The head of the Russell Group of universities, Professor Michael Arthur, has argued that 90% of funding to be allocated in the Research Excellence Framework should be concentrated in 25 – 30 institutions. Commenting at a Times Higher Education conference at the Royal Society this week Prof. Arthur, who is also vice-chancellor of Leeds University, argued that HEFCE’s plans to distribute £1.5 billion of research funding to excellent research “wherever it takes place”, will lead “a progression to mediocrity”. In times of fiscal constraint, he said, spreading the pot of research funding thinly will lead to a potential loss of international excellence.

The Government is expected to announce a policy of concentration of research funding, in some form or another, within the next few weeks.

Prof. Arthur also criticised HEFCE’s plan to award 25% of the overall assessment of a Department’s research quality on the basis of the economic and societal impact of the research. This could mean £400 – £500 million of funding will be determined on the basis of impact. Professor Arthur highlighted the practical difficulties in measuring impact (variable time lags before the impact is apparent, variability among disciplines and the real concern of the humanities and social sciences), and suggested that basing 10% of the allocation on impact would be more appropriate.

Separately, the Times today reports that hundreds of scientists, including six Nobel laureates and Professor Richard Dawkins, have signed a statement condemning HEFCE’s plans to make funding conditional on social and economic impact, stating that this will be counterproductive. “The REF proposals are founded on a lack of understanding of how knowledge advances. It is often difficult to predict which research will create the greatest potential impact, ” the statement says. The researchers argue that the plans for the REF will mitigate against basic research and could lead to an intellectual ‘brain drain’ to the USA.

Meanwhile, Professor John Beddington, UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor, welcomes HEFCE’s plans to recognise the engagement in policy by academics as part of the REF, writing an opinion piece in the Times Higher. Prof. Beddington supports efforts to recognise and reward the contribution made by excellent research to Government policy-making and welcomes HEFCE’s plans explicitly to recognise work that leads to “better informed policy-making or improved services”. “The role of academic advice is to promote sound evidence, to challenge assumptions and subject claims to critical scrutiny”, Prof. Beddington states. “It is essential that Government gets the best advice on pressing issues of the day, but it is also important to promote a wider culture in which engagement between academics and government is the norm in policy delivery”.

For more information about the British Ecological Society’s policy work and opportunities to get involved visit www.britishecologicalsociety.org/policy