Forum for Science, Industry and Business

£14 million available for biodiversity research

The new funding comes from BiodivERsA, a network of 19 public research funding bodies from 14 European countries. The UK partners are the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), who together are contributing 4 million euros, around £2.7 million, for this first funding call.

BiodivERsA provides the means for bringing together some of the best research minds across Europe and aims to address present and future challenges in biodiversity, linking scientific advancement to policy and practice. There is a specific requirement for researchers making a bid for the money being made available – to have a chance of success both the science and the policy aspects must be addressed.

Joan Ruddock, Minister for Climate Change and Biodiversity, said: “This new research initiative will help us answer important questions such as how losses of biodiversity affect our well-being and what we can do to conserve biodiversity in the face of climate change. I am very pleased that Defra is working with European partners in this exciting international research programme”.

NERC’s new strategy pinpoints biodiversity as one of its priority research themes for the coming years. The research council has appointed Professor Lloyd Peck, a leading authority on the biodiversity of natural environments, to champion the development of this important theme.

Professor Peck said: “It’s important that we improve our knowledge of the ways that humans and climate change affect biodiversity, on land, in fresh-waters and in the sea. We must learn more about how life can respond to change and how we can sustain it in the long-term. Climate change affects the way in which the environment functions and we need to know what we can do to minimise the negative effects on ecosystems.”

“We also have to get better at putting a value on ecosystems, for example on the way that they produce healthy soils for agriculture, or how near-shore ecosystems purify the effluent we put into them. Finally we need to make sure that our findings are as useful to governments and policymakers as we can, and that any clear improvements are implemented as soon as possible. This new money will provide a good start for the whole process.”

Marion O'Sullivan | alfa
Further information:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk

Im Focus: Topological material switched off and on for the first time

Key advance for future topological transistors

Over the last decade, there has been much excitement about the discovery, recognised by the Nobel Prize in Physics only two years ago, that there are two types...

Im Focus: Researchers develop method to transfer entire 2D circuits to any smooth surface

What if a sensor sensing a thing could be part of the thing itself? Rice University engineers believe they have a two-dimensional solution to do just that.

Rice engineers led by materials scientists Pulickel Ajayan and Jun Lou have developed a method to make atom-flat sensors that seamlessly integrate with devices...

Im Focus: Three components on one chip

Scientists at the University of Stuttgart and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) succeed in important further development on the way to quantum Computers.

Quantum computers one day should be able to solve certain computing problems much faster than a classical computer. One of the most promising approaches is...

Im Focus: Substitute for rare earth metal oxides

New Project SNAPSTER: Novel luminescent materials by encapsulating phosphorescent metal clusters with organic liquid crystals

Nowadays energy conversion in lighting and optoelectronic devices requires the use of rare earth oxides.

Im Focus: A bit of a stretch... material that thickens as it's pulled

Scientists have discovered the first synthetic material that becomes thicker - at the molecular level - as it is stretched.

Researchers led by Dr Devesh Mistry from the University of Leeds discovered a new non-porous material that has unique and inherent "auxetic" stretching...