Testimonials

 

Applied Ecology Resources will help us all to make better decisions to conserve our natural world

– Peter Brotherton Director of Science, Natural England

 

Member organisations

The benefits of AER Membership

Natural England (on behalf of Defra) – “Making our science and evidence more visible and accessible to our own staff and to a global audience will help to make evidence-based decisions that benefit the natural environment with greater ease and confidence.”

Field Studies Council – “The Field Studies Council is passionate about sharing our learning and raising awareness of the work that we do within the ecology sector. We publish reviews and reports relating to our biodiversity projects on our website so that they are publicly accessible. Applied Ecology Resources enables us to do this in a much more accessible manner, by collating our documents in a single shared database for the sector. Furthermore, it facilitates use of this information in a clearly referenceable and easily traceable manner.”

NatureScot – “Knowledge is a key tool in fighting the twin biodiversity and climate crises. At NatureScot, we know that we can’t tackle the issues alone and we want to make our research as widely available as possible. We wanted a solution that made our reports easy to access at no cost to the user, not stuck behind a paywall.”

Connecting practitioners and researchers involved in ecological management

Natural England – “Academics and practitioners will have a forum for the exchange of ideas, helping to make research more targeted to key practical and policy issues, as well as helping practitioners realise the benefits of science-based evidence to develop effective and efficient conservation interventions.”

Field Studies Council – “The Applied Ecology Resources platform allows the Field Studies Council to share our learning and impacts from projects centering on biodiversity monitoring and species identification with policy makers and other influencers within the ecology sector. Easily accessible and referenceable material will improve the quality of review and policy documents, and help ecology-based projects create better informed and more mature and sustainable approaches to future funding challenges.”

 

The more bodies join it, the more useful [AER] will become and the greater its impact in helping protect, restore and value nature

– Eileen Stuart Deputy Director of Nature & Climate Change, NatureScot

 

NatureScot – “It’s an ideal solution for government and non-government organisations alike. The more bodies join it, the more useful it will become and the greater its impact in helping protect, restore and value nature. We hope that as many people as possible will be able to use our research, both here and around the world. It would be great to see work from Scotland helping others to protect nature.”

Reaching a wider audience

Natural England – “Applied ecologists and conservation scientists based in universities, government conservation agencies and conservation NGOs [should use AER].”

Field Studies Council – “In addition to uploading content to AER, the FSC will use AER to evidence responses to government consultations and future biodiversity project funding bids. We envisage that AER will be used by a wide range of people, including policy makers, ecologists, academics, conservationists, undergraduates, funding bodies and philanthropists.”

NatureScot – “We’ve long supported the principles of open science but sometimes it’s a challenge to reach a wider audience. Having a report on our website is important, but people who need the information may not think to look there or search engines may not pick them up. We needed a means of reaching out further. Rather than try to invent a way of making our material available, Applied Ecology Resources offers a ready-made library that is freely available to all. By making our reports easily available, we are able to allow anyone with access to a computer to read them and use our findings.”

 

The ecological community

 

I expect AER to become the go-to resource for people wanting to know about what’s going on in research and practice for applied ecology.

– E.J. Milner-Gulland Director, Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science

“A vast wealth of evidence and practical solutions rests in organisational reports that are currently largely inaccessible and often unknown to most researchers and decision makers. By making these ‘grey’ evidence sources readily available, Applied Ecology Resources will help us all to make better decisions to conserve our natural world.”

– Peter Brotherton Director of Science, Natural England

“Applied information has value beyond individual projects and maximising the value of information means that it should be shared to practitioner communities. Furthermore, effective project design requires that multiple sources of information be assessed to ensure effective use of limited applied management dollars. And this is where Ecological Solutions and Evidence and Applied Ecology Resources come in – heralding a new era of practitioner-academic communication and cross-pollination.”

– Marc Cadotte AER Chair & Editor-in-Chief, Ecological Solutions and Evidence

“Ecological Solutions and Evidence is the first journal to provide open access to research solely focused on applied science, which will overcome the significant financial and logistical hurdles to access many managers face. Combined with the new data information repository, Applied Ecology Resources, such unfettered access to research and data has the potential to be transformative, by pushing the science, policy, and practice of applied environment management forward.”

– Holly Jones Lead Editor, Ecological Solutions and Evidence

“By providing a platform on which we can all share our information, and hopefully also a community of practice that will help us all to stay up to date with new approaches, results and policy in applied ecology. I expect it to become the go-to resource for people wanting to know about what’s going on in research and practice for applied ecology.”

– E.J. Milner-Gulland Director, Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science

“Increasing the communication between academics and practitioners will be to the benefit of both parties as they have highly complementary skills. And by working together, it’s very likely that they will be able to solve bigger problems more effectively too.”

– Jane Memmott President, British Ecological Society