TUESDAY 1 MAY 2007

PROFESSOR GIDEON HENDERSON

  Q89  Chairman: Welcome to the second panel of this investigation, the Oceans inquiry, and we welcome very much Professor Gideon Henderson of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. Thank you very much indeed not only for your written evidence but also for coming as our witness this morning. You probably heard the discussion we had with NERC over marine science. I just wonder whether you feel, as an academic within the university sector, that marine science has got this level of prestige and strength within the university sector that it has perhaps within its institutes: where is the strength?

  Professor Henderson: I think I would say that, in broad terms, the strength in the university sector is not as high as in the institutes, and partly that reflects an absence of ready funding routes into those institutes. There are some areas of particular excellence in the university sector, areas where there is very good work going on, certainly in the chemical regime in the oceans but also in other branches of ocean sciences, and that tends to be focused in relatively few universities at present.

  Q90  Chairman: What can the university sector offer this whole area of marine science; why do we not just leave it to the institutes?

  Professor Henderson: That is a good question. There are two distinct answers to that question. The first one is to do with research and the second one is to do with training. In the research area, I think that, as I said, there is excellence in the university sector which would complement, or perhaps out-compete, work in the institutes at the moment, and those areas should be nurtured more carefully. I think, if there was more ready funding for marine science in the university sector we would find also that those areas of excellence would increase and we would see more university involvement in other areas of marine science, they would introduce competition and additional strength to the research process in marine science in the UK. The training aspect is that obviously the universities are responsible for bringing on the next generation of people who will work in marine sciences, and the active involvement of the universities is an absolute prerequisite if you want to get good scientists to come into marine sciences in the future.

  Q91  Chairman: How easy is it for the university sector with marine expertise to collaborate with NERC centres; how close is the relationship?

  Professor Henderson: Intellectually, the relationship can be as close as you want it to be, but the problem is always to fund the research that you want to do. At the moment if you want to fund research between universities and the institutes that has to be done through the responsive, non-directed mode within NERC, if you are looking for money within NERC. That limits things, because it is an extremely competitive way of getting money through the NERC system, and obviously most of the marine resources currently are going through other channels rather than the responsive mode. That is set to change in Oceans 2025, with the introduction of SOFI, the Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative, which you have heard a little about already this morning, and I welcome that as a very positive move. Unfortunately, we have not seen very much information about that. I hope that SOFI will grow and will be as effective as it sounds that it may be.

  Q92  Chairman: I can understand, in terms of the competitive bidding for funding, that there is a tension there. The Committee is trying to find out how you collaborate with the institutes directly; do they ever come to you for support, in terms of research work, or do you ever make a joint bid with an institute for a research project? How does that operate, or does that just not happen?

  Professor Henderson: I think that it happens; it could happen more, but I think both of those examples that you have made do happen. There is dialogue between the institutes and the university sector and bids are made, but bids are not made generally through the strategic routes within there.

  Q93  Chairman: How would you describe the research which is going on within the university sector, in terms of marine science? I do not mean in terms of quality, I am interested in the areas. Which areas are the universities specialising in, which is not happening within the centres?

  Professor Henderson: I suppose one area which I would draw out from this morning's discussion, where perhaps there is a little bit of a difference, is that the universities tend to be more interdisciplinary, so there is more work in areas such as climates, for instance, than there is in some of the centres. That means that work where oceanography is a component part of a larger body of research is often pursued at universities and not in the centres.

  Q94  Chairman: In terms of funding, other than from the research councils, where are you getting your funding from, where are the other big sources of funding for the university sector?

  Professor Henderson: For oceanic research, those other sources of funding are small, basically. We get some money through charitable organisations, the Leverhulme Foundation, other charitable organisations contribute some money, but for marine research the funding opportunities are quite small outside the research councils.

  Q95  Chairman: What about the European Framework Programme, so the European Research Council, is that an area of funding which is open to you?

  Professor Henderson: Yes; that is true. I would have called that a research council; it depends whether you mean within Britain or whether you mean rather more generally. I think that EU money is available and there are some very successful EU programmes which work in the marine sector and involving university scientists.

  Q96  Chairman: Are the European Framework Programmes—if you take Framework 6, for instance, or even the new Framework 7 Programme—separate from the European Research Council; are there programmes available there to bid into?

  Professor Henderson: There are; relatively few and they have the problems of the strength, depending on which way you look at it, but the sheer size of the typical consortia that are required at European level, they are normally looking for very large groups of people. That is a good format to do really targeted research in a few areas and I think the EU is very successful at doing that, but it funds very specific areas of ocean marine science.

  Q97  Chairman: We heard this morning about the co-ordination of the various bodies involved in marine science. In terms of the university sector, do you tend to work as a group, or do you work as individual silos; how do you co-operate?

  Professor Henderson: In a wide variety of ways; it is not a straightforward question to answer. Even within a single research group there will be projects which are internal to that group, projects which involve co-ordination at a local level and a national level or an international level. I think there are very many ways of working. Increasingly, I think what we are seeing in universities is a move towards a system a little more like the American system, where you have active research groups in universities; this has happened, of course, in other subjects, chemistry and physics perhaps, for some time. In the earth and environmental and ocean sciences I think we are seeing a culture developing where there are research groups, they have a particular disciplinary strength in an area, which have a long-standing team of post-docs, students and researchers and technicians. That is more like the American model and enables those groups to interact internationally and nationally quite effectively, in terms of research.

  Q98  Chairman: Should we be encouraging that way; do you feel that is an effective way for Government to be encouraging research in this area to continue?

  Professor Henderson: I think it is, yes. Many of the problems that we have to face up to in the marine area are big enough and challenging enough that the sort of `one man and his dog' approach is not very effective at solving them.

  Q99  Dr Spink: On the funding side, we have talked about Framework Programmes and the public bodies; you did not mention the sources of private funding. Is there any collaboration with oil companies or companies which are extracting minerals; is there any funding or intellectual co-operation with those organisations?

  Professor Henderson: I think, to be honest, I find that a difficult question to answer because of the side of ocean sciences that I work in myself. I am more on the environmental and climate-related side. I think people working on the mineral and oil recovery side do have some interaction with companies. There has been a thematic programme within NERC looking at ocean margins, which I know has generated interest from oil companies and funding from oil companies. Naturally, that comes into only particular parts of the marine sciences.

  Chairman: You made some stinging comments about the relationship between NERC and the university sector and I am asking Linda if she will develop some of those.