STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF EXISTING RESEARCH COUNCIL AND OSI MECHANISMS AND ACTIVITIES TO MAINTAIN AND PROMOTE INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

  International policies and activities of the research councils work well where there is a community of relevant UK scientists with research interests that map into international programmes. A good example is climate research where the UK is one of the international leaders in climate prediction and our research in this field maps into IOC/WMO for the IPCC reports and the WCRP. It is natural for the NERC to develop a policy at a corporate level for international collaboration on climate change research driven by its "bottom-up activities". It is also important that the NERC works closely with Defra on developing international collaboration on climate change research, the latter being strongly engaged in this field.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE RESEARCH COUNCILS AND THE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS INVOLVED IN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING THE OSI, DEFRA, THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE'S SCIENCE AND INNOVATION NETWORK AND TE DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  We are pleased to see a new collaborative initiative between DfiD and NERC in which state of the art environmental research will be used to alleviate poverty in targeted regions of the world. However, the threat of coastal flooding due to rising sea level and storm surges has the potential to claim many lives in developing countries and despite our overtures to DfiD about this matter they are still unable to fund work on this topic. The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) based at POL has been campaigning for the deployment of tide gauges in NW Africa to provide data for a coastal flood forecast system. Rapidly growing cities such as Lagos are vulnerable to storm surges, potentially leading to a loss of life measured in the tens of thousands. The International Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and NERC co-fund PSMSL but this does not cover the cost of deploying and maintaining a tide gauge network in NW Africa. In practice the best way of ensuring maintenance of tide gauges in this part of the world is to train local people such as harbor masters to become the custodians of the system. In our opinion it would be entirely appropriate for DfiD, together with the IOC and NERC, to contribute towards the cost of developing a coastal flood forecast system for NW Africa.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION THROUGH THE EU FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME, INCLUDING RESOURCES ENHANCING PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE RESEARCH COUNCILS AND EUROPEAN AGENCIES IN THE NEW FRAMEWORK 7 INITIATIVE AND THE PROVISION OF RESOURCES TO STIMULATE UK PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMES

  POL scientists are very well served by UKRO as regards European Union issues and funding. We believe that it is important that the UK continues to be represented on Framework Programme committees by Ruth Boumphery and her counterparts with good contact with the research community, not just by "faceless" civil servants in Defra.

  The EU is developing plans for large scientific infrastructure such as an ice breaker and marine cabled observatories. However, we are concerned that there has not been wide enough dialogue between UK scientists (in the HEI and Research Council sectors) and the Research Councils about constructing a priority list for these large facilities. How will the Research Councils decide which of the large EU infrastructure projects will be supported if wide consultation with the scientific community has not taken place?

April 2007