The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.

History

NERC began in 1965 when several environmental (mainly geographic) research organisations (including Nature Conservancy which became the Nature Conservancy Council in 1973 and was divided up in 1991) were brought under the one

umbrella organisation An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry-specific) institutions who work together formally to coordinate activities and/or pool resources. In business, political, and other environments, it provides resources and ofte ...

. When most research councils were re-organised in 1994, it had new responsibilities – Earth observation and science-developed

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

. Collaboration between research councils increased in 2002 when

Research Councils UK Research Councils UK, sometimes known as RCUK, was a non-departmental public body which coordinated science policy in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2018. It was an umbrella organisation that coordinated the seven separate research councils t ...

was formed.

Chief executives

* Sir Graham Sutton (1965–1970) • Professor James William Longman Beament (succeeding V. C. Wynne-Edwards FRS) 1978-1981 * Professor

John Krebs John Richard Krebs, Baron Krebs, Kt FRS (born 11 April 1945) is an English zoologist researching in the field of behavioural ecology of birds. He was the principal of Jesus College, Oxford, from 2005 until 2015."Elliott Coues Award, 1999: S ...

, Baron Krebs 1994-1999 * Sir John Lawton 1999–2005 * Professor Alan Thorpe 2005–2011 * Dr Steven Wilson (Acting) – 2011–2012 * Professor Duncan Wingham – from 1 January 2012https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-chief-executive-announced-for-the-natural-environment-research-council (BIS announcement)]

Organisational structure

The council's head office is at Polaris House in

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population ...

, alongside the other six Research Councils. NERC's research centres provide leadership to the UK environmental science community and play significant and influential roles in international science collaborations. It also supports a number of collaborative centres of excellence and subject-based designated Environmental Data Centres for the storage and distribution of environmental data.

Mission

The Natural Environment Research Council delivers independent research, survey, training and knowledge transfer in the

environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geog ...

s, to advance knowledge of

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

as a complex, interacting system. The council's work covers the full range of

atmospheric An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A ...

, Earth,

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

, terrestrial and aquatic sciences, from the deep oceans to the upper

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A ...

, and from the

geographical pole A geographical pole or geographic pole is either of the two points on Earth where its axis of rotation intersects its surface. The North Pole lies in the Arctic Ocean while the South Pole is in Antarctica. North and South poles are also define ...

s to the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can also ...

. NERC's mission is to gather and apply knowledge, create understanding and predict the behaviour of the

natural environment The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses t ...

and its resources, and communicate all aspects of the council's work. The British Meteorological Office is ''not'' part of NERC.

NERC Airborne Research Facility

The NERC Airborne Research Facility (ARF) collects and processes remotely sensed data for use by the scientific community. Data are collected from one of four Twin Otter research aircraft (or a Dash 7) operated by British Antarctic Survey, processed by a data analysis team at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and archived at the National Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC). Currently the NERC ARF provides radiometrically corrected hyperspectral data from the AISA Fenix and Owl instruments; ground height information from the Leica ALS50-II; and digital photography.

History

Chief executives

Organisational structure

Mission

NERC Airborne Research Facility

See also

References

External links