UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 470-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

science and technology committee

investigating the oceans

Tuesday 1 May 2007

PROFESSOR SIR HOWARD DALTON, MR TREVOR GUYMER, DR PHILIP NEWTON and DR MIKE WEBB

PROFESSOR GIDEON HENDERSON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 129

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Science and Technology Committee

on Tuesday 1 May 2007

Members present

Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair

Linda Gilroy

Dr Brian Iddon

Chris Mole

Mr Brooks Newmark

Dr Bob Spink

Dr Desmond Turner

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Professor Sir Howard Dalton, Chairman, Plenary Committee, and Mr Trevor Guymer, Secretary, the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology (IACMST); and Dr Philip Newton, Deputy Director, Science and Innovation, and Dr Mike Webb, Marine Science and Innovation Manager, Natural Environment Research Council, gave evidence.

Q1 Chairman: Good morning. Can I welcome our witnesses to this the first session of the Science and Technology Committee's new inquiry into Investigating the Oceans. With us this morning are Professor Sir Howard Dalton, the Chairman of the Plenary Committee for the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology, Mr Trevor Guymer, the Secretary of the Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology, Dr Phil Newton, who is the Deputy Director for Science and Innovation at the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and Dr Mike Webb, the Marine Science and Innovation Manager for the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Good morning, all of you. Can I start with you, Professor Dalton, and say what is your assessment at the moment in terms of the health of the marine science sector, is it in good health, is it declining, is it increasing, what is your assessment?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: It has undergone quite a lot of change over the last few years, certainly for the last four or five years. In some areas I think it is doing quite well, in other areas I think it is not doing as well as it ought.

Q2 Chairman: Can you be more precise?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think one area which has concerned us particularly on the IACMST (which is a more convenient acronym for it than saying it at great length) is very much to do with the co‑ordination of the activities that are going on within the UK. There is a fair amount of good research and certainly there is a good amount of activity in the area and, largely due to NERC, over the last few years, and their programme, which I am sure you want to talk about, Oceans 2025, it has made quite a big difference to the way in which we are trying to get together to try to co‑ordinate activities; but that is only a small part of it. There is a lot more that needs to be done in terms of bringing about much better co‑ordination right across the piece. I think particularly that is true, for example, in government departments, where it is deferred to one or two or three, many of which have a strong interest in marine science and technology but which are not as well co‑ordinated and functioning as well as I think they ought. One of the problems we have is possibly, in our particular case, that we do not have enough teeth, in IACMST, to bring about many of the changes which I think need to be brought about. We do not have resource, we act there in just an advisory role; we are a catalyst, to try to bring people together, and all that we can do is try to bring people together, tell them what the problems are, tell them what the issues are and rely very much upon them to try to sort it out. I think there are a lot of issues which really we do need to address properly, in terms of co‑ordinating and developing the science, and in some areas I think it is going very well, in other areas not so well.

Q3 Chairman: We knew that back in the late 1980s, when this Committee moved from its predecessor; has this been a constant pattern, and why do you think there is this realisation now that we have got to do more?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I do not think it is a realisation now, Phil. I think actually, as you say, correctly, it has been with us for quite some time. I just do not think there is the mechanism in place at the moment to be able to address those sorts of issues. We are a very small part of this operation. The IACMST is really a facilitator for activity; we are not sufficiently geared up to being able to resource any activities, we just do not have it. We have a very small resource, funded largely by the Natural Environment Research Council and by subscriptions from our members, but all we can do is point people in the right direction. We are doing things ourselves, we are initiating things and we are telling people largely what they ought to be doing, but that is about all we can do.

Q4 Linda Gilroy: Are its powers and membership appropriate to what you would like to see it do more effectively?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think the membership is okay, there is no problem there, we have all the right people on board; it is a question of how we can get them to do things. All we can do is facilitate, all we can do is indicate and bring people together.

Q5 Linda Gilroy: Where are its powers, its remit, written out; is that a memorandum?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: There are terms of reference. Trevor, who is the Secretary, probably would tell you, better than I, what those terms of reference are.

Q6 Linda Gilroy: Are they appropriate to what needs to be done to focus and energise what is going on in the sector?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Trevor, maybe you can answer that one, because you know the terms of reference better than I do.

Mr Guymer: Primarily, they are to have oversight of what is going on in marine science and technology in the UK within the international context and to ensure that appropriate co‑ordination exists. We have taken that a little further, that when we have seen that we, IACMST, with albeit its limited resources, could provide a useful co‑ordination role ourselves then we have taken that on, specific examples are marine monitoring and to do with data and information management. We have set up groups to bring together people from across the community and when we have seen a particularly interesting topic we have set up a short-life working group on that. One of those, for example, was underwater sound and marine life, and that was very successful in bringing together people from across the different sectors who, perhaps, left to themselves, would have continued in parallel tracks, but we have seen a real convergence there; but, with the resources that we have and the remit we have, we cannot tell people to do particular things. One useful thing which perhaps could be done is to have added to our terms of reference that the member departments and agencies should be required to report regularly to the Committee. At the moment really it is much more on a voluntary basis, people volunteer information; we try to encourage them to work together.

Q7 Chairman: Dr Newton, can I ask you this basic question, just to get us going: do you agree with Professor Dalton's analysis of the state of marine science?

Dr Newton: I do agree with his analysis of the state of marine science, yes. I think that definitely there have been significant improvements in the last few years. I agree also with his assessment of IACMST, and what we have done in NERC is try to take some complementary approaches which would be intended to deliver towards the same objectives as IACMST but try to support it in some way, and part of that is the creation of Oceans 2025.

Q8 Chairman: Dr Newman, can I come on to funding. We want to ask you another question, Professor Dalton. In terms of funding, do you feel that the funding for marine science is adequate, is it getting better; is there a difficulty with it, does that limit what you can do?

Dr Webb: To be honest, I find it hard to be sure. Within NERC the marine sciences attract a significant proportion of the funds available, so, in terms of responsive mode, NERC is providing about 20 per cent of its funds in this area. In terms of the strategic marine science programme, Oceans 2025, NERC has been able to increase marginally the amounts of money it has given the new five-year programme.

Q9 Chairman: I am just looking at the funds, you see: terrestrial monitoring, £500 million goes in; marine environment, £36 million. That hardly seems to be a significant investment really. That has come from the Environmental Research Funders' Forum.

Dr Webb: I would agree, there does seem to be ---

Q10 Chairman: A slight imbalance there?

Dr Webb: Yes.

Q11 Chairman: It that just historic?

Dr Webb: I am afraid I do not know. I have not seen the Environmental Research Funders' Forum analysis so I do not know what is behind the terrestrial observation from them, but I would imagine it is made up of the Environment Agency and a whole load of other agencies; whereas, in the marine environment, I think, the long-term monitoring, a substantial amount of it is from NERC. I am not sure if that is true necessarily with other organisations.

Q12 Chairman: Professor Dalton, do you share that analysis, that it seems to be incredibly underfunded compared with the work on terrestrial observation?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think there is no doubt about it, it is seriously underfunded, yes, and the figures you quote are quite right; it is an issue that one has in marine science. I think actually what is interesting is that people now are beginning to realise gradually, largely I think through NERC's activities, that the marine environment is extremely important, and particularly as an island we have a great dependence upon understanding and working with the marine environment. There are many issues which need to be addressed right now and the Natural Environment Research Council, and to some extent Defra and some of the other funding agencies, are putting money into it, but I do not think it is enough, judging by the value that the marine environment brings to the economy. We are talking constantly of something around five per cent of GDP, now that is a significant amount of money, and the amount of money that goes into researching that and developing it I think is really a very small part of that and needs addressing.

Q13 Chairman: As far as the Committee is concerned, Mr Guymer, could you tell me, in terms of the priorities which exist currently in terms of funding marine science, do you feel that the different parts of the community have got it right? If you were an agency, rather than an advisory committee, in fact would you be putting money in different areas?

Mr Guymer: Given that marine is rising up the political agenda, and particularly with the potential Marine Bill in sight and the implications for global climate change on the marine ecosystem, I think where there is a real need to have additional resources, which may be a shift of funds, is into the area of monitoring. We have identified that already, but it is a very difficult area because it cuts across all of the different departments and so that single fact makes it very difficult for one department or agency or research council to say "We will pick that up." I think that is the single most important area I would identify where more resources need to be concentrated if the UK is going to be able to underpin its policy in marine better and if it is going to be able to fulfil its commitments on the international scene as well.

Q14 Chairman: In terms of change of priorities, where would you put your money?

Dr Newton: I will answer your question, but I guess the way I look at it is this. About three or four years ago, NERC had a pretty poor understanding of what marine observations we were making, in fact probably in most areas, largely because of the historical fragmentation of our investments, we have about seven different research institutes which, for various reasons, have different agendas. We did a review of our investments in the marine sector and, as a consequence, we understand much better now what we are doing and why we are doing it. We asked our marine institutes, the institutes in which we have strategic marine investments, to set the new proposal, which was Oceans 2025, as a co‑ordinated proposal in the context of national and international needs and explicitly to separate out of it the monitoring, the long-term observation, so that we could crystallise that very clearly. In parallel to that, we have got the Environmental Research Funders' Forum, which is a forum of all the different funders of environmental research in the UK, and I think that was the report you quoted from earlier. The report which you quoted was trying to say, basically, "Okay, right across the environmental sciences, what do we fund, in long-term observations; we do not understand that very well, across all the funders?" We know that now and, as a group of funders, we have decided to fund a follow‑on study, which is trying to move towards a strategic decision-making framework for what sorts of environmental observations we should be making in the long term and what types of pay-scales. To me, that is the most important thing, that we have identified a process, in investing resources, in trying to answer the question, say, in one or two years' time, about where we should be making the observations. I think that is the way I would like to approach answering that question, rather than sort of the proclivities or limited understandings of any one member.

Q15 Chairman: You are nodding in agreement?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes, very much, and the observational side clearly is a very important part and it is something which we have been flagging up for quite some time. It is an area where we need these global observation processes in place in order to make sure that we have got a lot of the science in place that we need. We need these observations, for the simple reason that there are a lot of things happening right now. Climate change is a big issue, and going along with climate change issues in the oceans is ocean acidification. The amount of CO₂ which is going into the oceans is causing some serious problems, it is changing the biodiversity in those oceans; we need to understand that better, we need to know what to do about it when we can determine where the real problems are. We have got real problems, as you know, with fish stocks, biodiversity in the oceans, we need to understand that better; flood and coastal management and other areas which are really important that we need to be able to work towards. I think it is a whole number of different areas, all of which are becoming extremely important, which we need to be funding in the future. The question is, there is insufficient resource, I think, to be able to do it. The Natural Environment Research Council are the biggest funders of this. Defra I know fund quite a bit of work in this area, but nowhere near as much as the Natural Environment Research Council. It all needs to be done, and it needs to be done not just from a UK perspective but from a global perspective as well.

Q16 Mr Newmark: This question is a follow‑up question, to Professor Dalton. You said that the contribution of marine activities is roughly five per cent of GDP. The latest figures that we have go back to 1999/2000, unfortunately, and, I am wondering, currently is it still roughly five per cent of GDP?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: The figures we came up with, in the report which IACMST produced in 2004, indicated that it had gone up to 4.9 per cent of GDP.

Mr Guymer: Yes, and if I could come in there, there was an earlier study done in 1994/1995 and that was 4.8 per cent, and following on the last select committee report by the Lords there was a study done then, so that was 1988, and again that came up with a figure of about five per cent; so we think there is some robustness in those figures. What I would add, as a rider, and this may lie behind your question as to why there has not been a study done since, is that getting this information together requires considerable effort in getting the information from the departments, so it is not the kind of thing that one wants to do too often, particularly if you have limited resources.

Q17 Mr Newmark: Is it an art or a science, defining what a marine activity is there?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Do not forget also, within that five per cent, in those figures of five per cent from the 1990s and 2004, was included the contributions from the oil and gas sector. In fact, the oil and gas sector contribution to GDP actually is going down slightly now and therefore we may not have all of the up‑to‑date figures, which were, when it was measured in 2004, the oil and gas industry was contributing 39 per cent of that five per cent, it may well be less than that now.

Q18 Mr Newmark: The figures remain fairly stable?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: It has been fairly stable.

Q19 Mr Newmark: In absolute terms, it has gone up, so it is roughly £50 billion plus, yes?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: If you had got the current GDP, it would be about that, yes.

Q20 Mr Newmark: In which case, how much private sector investment is there in marine sciences and research and where is this focused, that is private sector investment?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I do not know the answer to that; do you, for private sector investment? We did have some figures.

Mr Guymer: This would have to go across all of the oil and gas imports, and so forth. In terms of marine-related activities, what we quoted, the £39 billion, as Howard has said, most of that comes from the oil and gas. If you are talking about the research element of it, one of the biggest contributors to that, certainly the biggest on the private side, is oil and gas, which contributes about half of the £600 million turnover, or just over £300 million a year in value.

Q21 Mr Newmark: I would think it is the same not just in R&D but I would think the actual investment itself would have to be also oil and gas, I am assuming, yes?

Mr Guymer: Certainly it would be oil and gas. Despite any downward trend there might be, oil and gas would be still significantly the biggest player.

Q22 Mr Newmark: Given the whole issue of global warming and everything else, with respect to marine science, have you noticed any trend with respect to private sector investment going into new areas or new sciences, related specifically to marine science, in terms of new technologies, and so on?

Mr Guymer: So far, I would say that we do not have the evidence on which to say that.

Q23 Mr Newmark: What are IACMST and NERC doing to encourage knowledge transfer in the marine science field?

Dr Webb: From a NERC perspective, knowledge transfer within the Oceans 2025 programme has been seen as a critical element of the programme. The Council took a big interest in what was going on, in terms of knowledge transfer, and so for the first time we will have theme leaders within Oceans 2025. Those people's names will be made available to government agencies, so the government agencies can interact easily with the marine strategic science programme; there will be a number of stakeholder events annually, to encourage the policy interaction that is required.

Q24 Mr Newmark: Is it actually happening? You are saying there is a lot of action to encourage this, but do you see it being followed through, or not?

Dr Webb: Most definitely; this is a critical element of the delivery of Oceans 2025. At the moment there is an implementation plan which needs to be developed for Oceans 2025, then there will be consultation once again with stakeholders before that plan is put in place, so it is taken very, very seriously.

Q25 Dr Turner: Professor Dalton, and Mr Guymer, I think particularly, we are all agreed that the whole field is far too fragmented and underfunded, and the Committee has gone further and argues that the Government needs to behave like a coherent commissioner for marine research. If you could persuade the Government to do anything coherently, what would you want for them, in terms of marine research?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We discussed this earlier actually; it is a very interesting point. One of the interesting things that we have discovered, and certainly I have discovered, in IACMST, is the fragmentation that we have, and the way in which marine science is funded in the United Kingdom is still fragmentary. We have got a number of different government departments all putting in various bits and pieces and not necessarily co‑ordinating their activities in the way really that they ought to. If you could wave a magic wand and say actually what is going to be the best way, I would try to bring them all together and have some major organisations responsible overall for funding all the various aspects of marine science. At the moment we are beginning to try to get it together but it is still not there and I think it still needs a bit more work to it.

Q26 Dr Turner: Do you think the Inter-Agency Committee itself could be transmogrified into the body to do that?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: If it were properly resourced, possibly.

Mr Guymer: It is interesting to learn from the experience of marine science and technology in the EC Framework Programmes. In the 1990s there was a dedicated marine science and technology programme called MAST and that was very successful in bringing together different communities across Europe, working together in a much more co‑ordinated fashion. It seems somewhat ironic that we have achieved quite a bit in a decade or so while that dedicated programme was running, it is no longer a marine-dedicated programme, we achieved quite a lot there, and yet we do not have any kind of equivalent mechanism which provides that kind of incentive and encouragement for the different parts of the marine science and technology community to come together as a whole across the UK.

Q27 Dr Turner: The relationship between the Inter-Agency Committee and the OSI obviously is not irrelevant, too. How much do you feel that marine activities figure in the thinking of OSI; does it play a role at all?

Mr Guymer: I think it does, from time to time. OSI are full members of IACMST and therefore they see all of the trends that are being developed. In addition, when we see a critical issue, using Howard's role and access to the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, on occasions we have identified crucial elements, and two of them actually are cited in our submission, when we needed to get a UK national contribution to a particular satellite programme. Another one was the Argo profiling programme, where we realised that we were in danger of a lack of coherence, really shooting ourselves in the foot, and so when we have identified specific things we have taken those straight to Sir David King.

Q28 Dr Turner: Is it a two-way relationship?

Mr Guymer: I would say that, hitherto, it has tended to be one way; upwards.

Q29 Dr Turner: Would it be helpful if there was more positive pressure from OSI to encourage the marine contribution?

Mr Guymer: If OSI were to task IACMST with some specific things to do, and we had reasonable resources to do that, I think, based on our experience in our lifetime, we would be very keen to take on those responsibilities and would see it as a valuable service to the community.

Q30 Dr Turner: Do you think that is the way forward?

Mr Guymer: I think it is one way which strongly ought to be considered.

Q31 Chairman: Could I just follow that up and say we have just completed an inquiry into Space, though we have not published yet, so we cannot tell you what the conclusion was, and we have had similar discussions really about whether in fact we should have an agency, and what you have been describing, over the last few minutes, particularly to Des Turner, is an agency. Is that actually what you are asking for?

Mr Guymer: There are many agencies.

Q32 Chairman: I know there are. I think what you are asking for though is to have a specific marine agency actually to co‑ordinate all this, to have a central budget and to drive the science, in terms of marine science?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Personally, I think that would make a lot of sense. I think it needs some proper co‑ordination. It needs the Natural Environment Research Council to push forward the fundamental science which underpins much of what goes on in the marine environment, and they fund that and they do that, and certainly, through the new Oceans 2025, I think that is a very sensible way. There is a whole series of activities, aside from all of that, which, I think, if it were to come under some sort of agency operation, would make a lot of sense, in trying to bring about the co‑ordination. We try to co‑ordinate, through IACMST, but we are funded very poorly; we report to the OSI, we try to bring people together, we try to tell people what is going to be the sensible thing to do and what is not, we have brought together some very useful information on databases, which was fragmented before. If we had had resource and teeth I think we could have done a lot more.

Q33 Chairman: Do you have any links with the Royal Navy, any links into there?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We have few links with the Royal Navy; the MoD are represented on IACMST.

Q34 Dr Turner: Do they ever offer the use of their ships?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: They are used, yes. The Natural Environment Research Council uses them; we use them down in the Antarctic, I do know that.

Dr Webb: The Royal Navy help support the logistics for MAST down in the Antarctic.

Q35 Dr Turner: Do they tow plankton monitors; do they help with observations?

Mr Guymer: They do help with the deployment of Argo floats in remote areas, and that has included the South Atlantic, so we do have access to those ships when we need to but there is more that could be done in that area.

Q36 Chairman: In terms of a specific relationship, they sit on the Committee but they do not do a lot: yes, or no?

Mr Guymer: MoD are involved in quite an active way in IACMST sub-committees, to do with data and observations, so there is quite a strong relationship there.

Q37 Chairman: Are you going to echo that?

Dr Newton: I wanted just to add that the Oceans 2025 directors met with the MoD in the last couple of weeks and on the agenda was the possibility of enhancing the use of the Royal Navy and their platforms; it is something which is being discussed actively at the moment.

Q38 Chairman: There is a lot more that could be done?

Dr Newton: Yes.

Q39 Dr Iddon: I want to put a few questions to you on Oceans 2025. Where did the original idea come from and what was the philosophy behind setting it up, and who is involved in it? I know we have got the written evidence but perhaps you would just summarise that?

Dr Newton: In 2004, NERC took the view that, due to various historical events, our strategic marine science investment was rather fragmented, so we approached five of the Oceans 2025 partners and said that we would like them to start thinking about a more co‑ordinated approach when it came to the time to renew their proposals. To help with that, we commissioned a review of NERC marine science, all our investment, strategic and blue sky, so that NERC Council could understand what we are investing in currently and understand why we are doing so, and so forth. That review came out with a number of recommendations, one of which was to ask the Oceans 2025 labs - they were not called Oceans 2025 then, of course - to come into NERC with a much more co‑ordinated set of proposals than previously had been the case, where they were much more competitive at the previous round, we wanted something that was a better balance of competition and collaboration. Their response to that, essentially, was to go further than we had asked; we asked for a set of co‑ordinated proposals and they said, "No, we can do better than that; we can come up with a single proposal which we will co‑ordinate," which NERC Council was delighted with, so they responded very positively to that request. The other difference from the past was, because we had our NERC delivery plan, there were a number of specific targets in that, we specified to Oceans 2025, essentially, "We want you to come back to us with your case for the strategic marine research which NERC should be doing, set in a context of UK and international user needs, but we want the following things to be in it," in our delivery plan, which reflected our strategic priorities. We asked them to develop specific aspects to do with science for sustainable marine bio-resources, deep oceans and some transatlantic monitoring of a large overturning circulation which affects climate; so we specified, which we have not tended to do in the past. I think probably you know the rest; they came up with a proposal and it was seen very positively and funded appropriately.

Q40 Dr Iddon: For how long is the programme expected to last?

Dr Newton: It was bid for funds for 2007 to 2012, so it is a five-year proposal, which was what we asked for. In parallel with this, I think you are aware from your previous inquiries that we are reviewing the way that we fund our investments generally, the so-called FAB project, Funding, Allocation and Budgeting, and through that we will be moving to a case where we make investments on more of a rolling basis. Things such as long-term observation facilities, what we call now national capability, we intend funding for longer than a five-year period, generally speaking; then maybe turning over some of our more research-oriented programmes on different timescales. We structured the Oceans 2025 proposal so that it would help in transition into that new way of working, so the way they set up the proposal, in response to an invitation from us, will make it easier to transition into this new way of working. For example, it is very clear, from the proposal and the funded programme, what is the national capability, what is the research programme, where the knowledge transfer is, where the science is in society; we can see all that very clearly. In the past, asking for proposals, we would have had to bundle up all those things together.

Q41 Dr Iddon: Initially £120 million has gone in; presumably that is not new money, it has been shifted from somewhere else. Was that money already being spent on marine science which has just been collected together, or is there new money in Oceans 2025 for marine science?

Dr Newton: NERC Council has a current policy, when an investment in a research centre comes to an end, of inviting a proposal at ten per cent more than level funding plus indexation and then making a funding decision in the context of that proposed work. Oceans 2025 came in at ten per cent over the money it was getting already, so the money it was getting already was already in planning in NERC. In your terminology, that is not new money. They bid for ten per cent more than that, and it depends how you count things, but the increased funding was probably somewhere between about three and a half and six per cent, depending on what you count; so there is an element of additional funds in Oceans 2025 which was not there previously.

Q42 Dr Iddon: Were all the relevant universities involved in the decision-making process, and are they are able to bid for funding from the programme?

Dr Newton: In terms of the set-up, the Oceans 2025 directors, when they were developing the proposal, had an open consultation to try to answer our question of what needed to be in it, and that involved the universities, as well as the various agencies and departments could play a part in trying to shape what was in it. There was that in it, then, Mike, perhaps you can comment on the decision-making process and the SOFI scheme.

Dr Webb: The proposal itself for the new programme was peer reviewed extensively, which included university academics from this country and abroad. On top of that we had a moderating panel which had on it academics from both this country and abroad, and senior directors from institutes from abroad as well. As part of the Oceans 2025 settlement, there is going to be a Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative, which will fill the skills gaps, if you like, within Oceans 2025, hopefully with university academics, basically to encourage the collaboration between the universities and the marine centres. That initiative will have about £5 million worth of funding.

Q43 Dr Iddon: When we visited Plymouth, and indeed this is a constant theme of this Committee's investigations in this area, we heard again that researchers are finding it difficult deciding which research council to head their bid, and often are turned away, saying, "No, that's not BBSRC, that's NERC," or, "No, that's not EPSRC, it's NERC," or vice versa. We thought that Universities UK had been set up to squeeze those silos together and make interdisciplinary research much more successful; we are not picking that up in this area either, there seem to be tensions between the research councils. How is this new programme going to get over that?

Dr Newton: In terms of RCUK activities, this problem has been addressed over the last three to six months, but I guess, because changes have been made to the process to avoid the problem of one council coming back to bid and saying, "No, it's somebody else," we deal with that problem in a systematic way and we tell the proposer basically how we are going to handle it and that they should not have to worry to which research council they submit it, they should be able to put in their proposal and get it dealt with fairly. We have made changes to the processes through RCUK but they will not have filtered back to the community yet, because those changes have been made only in the last three to six months. I would expect, say, if you asked the same questions in six to 12 months' time, that the community would have more positive experiences of the way in which their proposals were handled. There is a system now which decides not only which council would handle the proposal but also, based on the fraction in different remits of the different councils, whether it would be co‑funded or funded by one council. This is now clearly laid out.

Q44 Dr Iddon: Are the members of your peer review panel sympathetic to this new idea, are they sympathetic to interdisciplinary research, do they understand it and do they sympathise with the people wanting to do this kind of research?

Dr Newton: Yes, they are, but we put quite a bit of effort into training the panels, because the way that we run our peer review system now, it used to be with fixed panels of a period of maybe three or four years, now we have much more of a rolling and large college that we draw on, so every year there are training exercises, and the need to be able to be aware of and how to deal with interdisciplinary proposals is part of that training. We are going to be reviewing the success of the college at some point in the near future and I would expect that to be one of the aspects we would look at.

Q45 Chairman: Can I take you up on an issue that you mentioned in reply to Dr Iddon, and that is the involvement of the universities. Professor Henderson, of Oxford, said to us, and I quote: "The Oceans-2025 document was prepared in secrecy without public consultation nor the open-involvement of marine researchers from the university sector. Requests for draft copies of the Oceans-2025 document were turned down during the writing of this important strategic document." That flies totally in the face of the evidence you have just given to this Committee?

Dr Newton: My understanding is that the proposal was subject to an open consultation. Obviously, we would need to check that as a factual piece of evidence. I do not know if you can help with that, Mike?

Dr Webb: I confirm, that is as I believe it to be.

Q46 Chairman: I am sorry; are you confirming that what Dr Henderson says is right, or what you have just said to this Committee is right?

Dr Webb: What we have said to this Committee is right. I believe the timescales were somewhat compressed, so the amount of time available for consultation with stakeholders was quite small.

Q47 Chairman: Why were they not given copies of the draft document?

Dr Webb: The actual proposal itself. I cannot answer that question. I suspect the reason was that the full proposal itself was not written until right at the last minute. It was a developing document and so the scientists were writing the science case as they went along.

Q48 Dr Iddon: How long was the consultation period?

Dr Webb: I do not know the answer to that, I am sorry.

Q49 Dr Iddon: You are aware that the Government lays down limits for its own consultation processes, which I think is three months?

Dr Newton: Yes. I should stress, just in case it is not clear, we specified that we wanted a proposal as I described from the Oceans 2025 directors; they wrote the proposal, they conducted the consultation, it was not something that we were involved in, which is why we cannot give you direct answers to these questions. To the best of my awareness, it was an open consultation. Certainly I know that a number of government departments and agencies had specific meetings with the Oceans 2025 directors on what should be in it.

Q50 Chairman: As you do not know, could you provide us with a written note on that? It is really quite a fundamental issue, because if universities were not involved in the consultation then that is something perhaps which should have happened?

Dr Newton: Yes, we will provide that.

Q51 Linda Gilroy: I am particularly interested in the interface between health and the oceans and the research associated with that, and it is a pretty new area. I would like to ask you if what you have been saying about addressing the difficulties of research between the different research councils will be addressed there? Certainly it is something which I think is a strong strand emerging in Plymouth between the new medical school and the scientists in the marine science community and I wonder if you think what you have said will address the difficulty of getting these issues onto the medical research agenda?

Dr Newton: Certainly developing capacity in the environment and human health sector is something which is very prominent in the strategy and was one of our priorities in the last Spending Review. As a consequence, we led the development of a cross-council and cross-agency programme, called Environment and Human Health, which I think invested about £5 million or £6 million, I could check the figure if you needed me to, and basically that is stretched across about eight or nine different funders, again the number may not be quite right but a good number of funders. We have been building capacity and capability in that sector, trying to form the links between the medical researchers, the economic and social and the environmental scientists, and so forth. In specifying what we wanted to see in Oceans 2025, we encouraged them to develop the proposal in the context of current NERC priorities, and, as a consequence, Plymouth Marine Laboratory in particular introduced a theme on marine environment and human health, but unfortunately that did not come through the peer review process in a way which enabled us to be able to fund it. Certainly we were delighted to see the ambition, implementing a new laboratory in that sector, but that particular piece of work we were not able to fund. My colleague mentioned the Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative, which is designed as a way, and there is £5 million, to be able to fund the work which Oceans 2025 should be doing but it does not have the capability to do itself, for whatever reason. This might be one of the areas for which that initiative could be used. We have just made an announcement to use the initiative for another area of Oceans 2025 which did not do particularly well during the funding process, in the area of sustainable marine bio-resources, and we have used the initiative funds we have just talked about, put them against some funds from Defra and from SEERAD and from the Northern Ireland Office to create a sort of cross-partner effort on research policy, sustainable marine environment resources; so that is another example of the way in which we are trying to fill the gaps, which ought to be in Oceans 2025 but which are not there.

Q52 Linda Gilroy: Do you think that matches up to the challenge which lies ahead, because climate change is as big an issue as I think is emerging on the political agenda; is the science in that interface responding quickly enough, and the funding of the science?

Dr Newton: NERC is in the process of developing its new strategy, which is definitely out to an open consultation at the moment, and we would expect that views which would help us form that opinion, when reflected in our strategy implementation plan, would come through that strategy consultation. It is clearly an area which is prominent in many people's minds.

Q53 Chris Mole: Professor Dalton, earlier on you mentioned the importance of monitoring, global monitoring in particular. What is your prognosis of the UK's capability and effectiveness and what have you been doing to promote UK participation in surveys amongst the Government and research councils?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: In many areas of science the UK punches very much above its weight. In this area, I think, probably we do not. I think this is an area where we do need to have a much more co‑ordinated and sustained effort, in terms of global observation systems. We do make our contributions. I think the problem is that the way in which it has been funded and resourced in the UK is fragmentary. We have had real problems trying to raise sufficient resources in order to be able to play our international part in being able to support and encourage and develop global monitoring systems. I think there is more that should be done. Personally, I believe that we might need again some sort of central pot of resources which addresses this issue. My colleague, Mr Guymer, mentioned the business about Jason‑2; that was an issue which we made a contribution towards in the UK, other countries in the world made contributions to it; it was very difficult to persuade different government departments to come up with the money to be able to support that. I think it is rather a sad reflection that often we have to go round with a hat to different government departments asking for contributions to support what are really important, international observational systems. There has to be a stage, I think, where we have got to consolidate that and say, "Actually, this is an important, international contribution that we have to make and we should resource it properly."

Q54 Chris Mole: Mr Willis mentioned earlier the happy juxtaposition of our Space inquiry with this inquiry. How do you think our position as a nation compares with others, with respect to the use of satellite technology for earth observation?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We are part of a global earth observation system of systems; we have been engaged in that actively for quite some time now. Certainly while I have been Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra we have been actively attending and being part of all of those various meetings and making an active contribution towards it. As far as the UK is concerned, I think we are not big players, we should be bigger. You heard, of course, I am sure, at the inquiry on Space, that there is a lot of extremely good technical innovation going on in the UK in the satellite business and we ought to be bigger players in that game, I think. At the moment, largely it is coming from other European countries: France, Germany and Italy put a lot more money into that than we do, but they have central government funding to do it. They do not have to go round, like we have to go round, with a hat, asking various different departments to make a contribution; that is not the case in Europe particularly, or in the United States. Though, I must say, the United States, NASA, there is a strong indication that they may well be cutting back significantly on their satellite programmes; they have announced they will reduce it by half by 2015.

Mr Guymer: In terms of earth observation for marine aspects, I think the general agreement around the world is that France has a much more coherent approach to this and has the lead, in many respects. It has an integrated approach across its industry, which tends to drive the European Space Agency programmes, and its user community; so they build excellent oceanographic satellite instruments and they have the user community bolted into that. The UK, apart from one particular instrument to measure sea surface temperature very precisely, has not tended to go down that route. The UK does have real, leading expertise in small satellites and that is something really which could be exploited much better by the UK. There is a real sampling problem with the ocean, compared with the land, where you have got things changing rapidly, and this can be overcome partially by having constellations of satellites, equipped with suitable sensors. There is a real opportunity there for the UK to carve out a niche, which would be not only in line with UK technology and industry but actually would meet a number of user requirements in the research councils and in terms of meeting policy agendas of Government.

Q55 Chris Mole: What are you doing to try to make sure that happens?

Mr Guymer: We have made that point in helping submissions to that particular inquiry, although IACMST itself did not; we put into that via other bodies. When there are international meetings, we have tried to advance the usefulness of the whole concept of small satellites and take the opportunity there at those conferences as well. It is interesting that, ten or 20 years ago, I remember standing up at a European Space Agency meeting and being shouted down because the concept of small satellites did not fit in with the idea of the big birds which the space agencies wanted to have. I think we have seen a shift of opinion during that time, but it is like trying to turn around a very, very big ship and it is taking time; so it is concerted pressure, not just isolated pressure.

Q56 Chris Mole: Can I ask everyone then what are the known unknowns, where are the gaps in the collection of data, with regard to climate change and biodiversity, as far as the oceans are concerned?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: In terms of the known unknowns, I think we have got pretty much, certainly on a global scale, most of the basis covered. We know what we need to be looking at and we are doing it; the question is, we do not have necessarily all of the instruments there to be able to do what we want to do. We are measuring sea surface temperatures; we have got floats which are out there measuring a whole variety of different parameters in the ocean.

Q57 Chris Mole: Like Argo?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes; like Argo. Those things are there, but getting all the measurements right; we are measuring marine circulation, we are measuring a whole variety of different parameters, we can look at the phytoplankton in the oceans from space, we can identify pretty much what is there. We have got all of the sensors in place, except that we do not have enough of them necessarily and the level of detail is insufficient. We have got some pretty broad observational systems, which cover very large areas, but we do not get very much local information. I think the problems really are trying to drill down and get a higher resolution of what is actually going on, because in order to make much better predictions for the future we need measurements of much higher resolution.

Q58 Chris Mole: Is there any more of that sort of detail perhaps with the Royal Navy you might have access to currently?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Quite honestly, I do not know the extra role the Royal Navy might play here, because most of the sensing measurement systems are done really quite remotely and, as we have mentioned, there is a whole number of systems out there; the Royal Navy do help.

Q59 Chris Mole: They have got a lot of sea-bed data and stuff like that?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes, in getting sea-bed data and doing measurements beneath the waters, which is largely to do with contour mapping, a very important part of what we have got to try to do; yes, I am sure they could help out there.

Q60 Chairman: Do you get access to all that data, in terms of sea-bed tracking; because they do a huge amount of work?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I am sure those data are available somewhere. I know, for example, when I was down in the Antarctic, the Royal Navy was involved in being able to do contour mapping of the sea-bed and that information is available, yes.

Q61 Linda Gilroy: There is a good link with the Met Office; is there a similar link with the Hydrographic Office, which is an MoD agency as well as the Met Office being an MoD agency?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I cannot speak on behalf of the Hydrographic Office. I do not know quite where they fit into this. Maybe you ought to ask them.

Q62 Chairman: We are going to.

Dr Newton: Just to answer your more general question, what are the known unknowns. I guess, from NERC's point of view, for the strategic investments that we make, by conducting a review of our marine investments and then asking our main strategic suppliers to identify what is required in the national context then testing that by national and international peer review of scientists and users, we would say, at this moment in time, the known unknowns that we want to know now are in Oceans 2025. We must not be complacent about that; we have got to keep revisiting that question. That would be my overall answer to your question. Because we also fund a lot of responsive mode, blue skies science, then of course we do not feel that we need to be able to identify things that we need to do in such a specific way. We need there to be mechanisms just for taking excellent proposals in any area of marine science.

Q63 Chris Mole: Can I follow that up by asking you and Dr Webb what guarantees NERC can give for sustained funding for surveys such as the Continuous Plankton Recorder, which we saw in Plymouth, and similar, long-term, because there seems to be enormous value in that long-term analysis of these oceans?

Dr Webb: Phil did tell you about national capability, and the main role for national capability is to ensure that there is sustainable funding for these critical, long-term time series. Of course there will be an element of review but it will be over a much longer time period, so it might be in ten or 12 years' time the time series of, say, the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science will be looked at; but it is an opportunity as well for that time series maybe to make the case for more money. There will be an element of review and it will be over longer periods of time.

Chairman: That sounded just like the Rumsfeld episode. That was very well done, Professor Newton.

Q64 Dr Spink: Mr Guymer, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee commented that, and I quote: "The paucity of biological data sets is hampering our ability to assess and interpret changes resulting from climate change." You have already said quite a bit about the availability of data sets, but there are massive data sets around the world; do you have sufficient access, is there sufficient exchange of data sets internationally: what is your view?

Mr Guymer: There is an intergovernmental mechanism which is set up, called the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange Programme, and that comes under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, which is the competent body, in UN terminology, for this. There has been a real effort, over quite a period of time, to pull together the various national and regional efforts which have been going on.

Q65 Dr Spink: They are organised under UNESCO, are they not?

Mr Guymer: They are, under UNESCO, yes.

Q66 Dr Spink: Is it working, the IOC (not the Olympics but Oceanographic)?

Mr Guymer: I can speak to that, because in addition to my role as Secretary of IACMST I lead the UK delegation to IOC. There is an issue here. IOC has evolved into not only doing the underpinning science but also in developing these operational systems, both in terms of data collection and the data management, and there is a tension, which is growing, between that role and the wider role of UNESCO. Certainly this is a feeling among a number of Member States, and my understanding is that this is going to begin to come to a head. Member States are going to be asked to consider various possibilities about the future of IOC within the UNESCO system; is it best served by being within it, or should there be some alternative. I would contrast the position of IOC with that of WMO, the World Meteorological Organisation, which of course also is a UN body but does not sit under an umbrella body like UNESCO. There is a direct correspondence between marine science and meteorological science and so I think that this whole issue is being pointed up at the moment.

Q67 Dr Spink: Thank you very much for that. It is self-evident, of course, that international collaboration on a subject like oceans is absolutely essential. What are NERC and IACMST doing to promote UK marine research in the international arena?

Dr Webb: At the current time, NERC has large investments in directed programmes which have collaborative elements, so within the Rapid Climate Change Programme, which NERC runs, we have got an array across the North Atlantic, which is funded jointly with the US. The US provides ship time to support that array and so, with the co‑ordinated programme between the US and NERC, we can support a very large observing system which, arguably, the US or the UK, in their own right, could not support. Also though we have investments, for example, we have an observatory on the Cape Verde Islands, it is an atmospheric observatory, with an oceanic observatory, and, through co‑operation with the Germans and the US, once again, we are able to put all of the elements in place for that ocean and atmospheric observatory, and hopefully ensure, over the longer term, that remains in place in a part of the world which is very sensitive to climate change, and, with joint funding, hopefully we will keep that going for many years to come. On ships, it is very noticeable, if you look at NERC's Cruise programme, that there is a large amount of co‑operation embedded within the NERC Cruise programme. In terms of NERC's barter arrangements, you may or may not be aware that we have exchange arrangements with six partners, and hopefully one more shortly, and that allows for exchange of ship time without exchange of funding. What that allows NERC to do is operate on a worldwide basis, even though UK ships do not go out of the North Atlantic, or the South Atlantic, or the Indian Ocean. An example of where that can lead; we funded a large consortium of Sumatra to look at the earthquake zone where the tsunami was generated, it is in a part of the world to which NERC has not sent ships for years, but through these barter exchange arrangements the Germans have provided 130 days of ship time to do geophysics off Sumatra. No money has been exchanged between NERC and the Germans but, in return, an example of what NERC will give the Germans is we will be in the Pacific early next year so we will do a geophysics experiment for the Germans, in return, off Chile. It is a hugely cost-effective way of using these large facilities, and the level of co‑operation, I think it is fair to say, has increased markedly over the last five to six years, to such an extent now that I think we can push even further and maybe start thinking about sharing facilities, be they big ocean observatories or the actual ships themselves. We are really building momentum in this area.

Mr Guymer: I could build on what I said earlier about the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Recently, it has been conducting a review of its Ocean Sciences programme and the UK has contributed ideas to that. Of course, in contributing ideas to it, we try also to get convergence with the UK national programme as well. We have been feeding very much into that. That is the intergovernmental process, which, as we all know, can be rather a slow process. Some years ago, the partnership in observing the global ocean, POGO, was set up to link the major oceanographic institutions of the world, and in particular to bring the directors and the senior staff of those institutes together to try to facilitate what was happening at the intergovernmental level. The UK was one of the founder members of that. I have attended several meetings to get cross-fertilisation with the intergovernmental process. In both of those ways, those mechanisms, I think we can advance international marine science and make sure that the UK is playing a key role, and I think in those arenas we do punch above our weight; it is not only to do with the financial resources, it is to do with our ideas, our intellectual capabilities.

Q68 Dr Spink: As in many areas, thankfully. Philip, are there any particular concerns regarding our link‑ups with the US?

Dr Newton: Certainly, from the links that I am aware of, it is all extremely positive. For the Rapid Climate Change programme, to which Dr Webb has just referred, that involved sort of a strategic partnership, whereby we undertook, researchers on both sides, in both countries, writing complementary proposals, a joint review process, by common reviewers, a joint decision-making panel; it was a very positive relationship with National Science Foundation. Some of that work is funded by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; again, very positive interactions, a lot of good work and funding coming for most of the programme.

Q69 Dr Spink: Is our international collaboration, particularly with the US, getting better, or getting worse?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I can answer one part of that, and maybe Phil will want to talk a little bit more about NERC's role specifically. Yesterday, for example, I was speaking in the Royal Society to a meeting which was organised between the UK, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the National Science Foundation in the US, and, in fact, the US sent over to this country, I think, about 15 of their scientists to be actively engaged in this meeting and make some major contributions, all on seas, which is where they are making a major contribution.

Q70 Dr Spink: Why I ask, Howard, is that Plymouth told the Committee that there was decreasing ease with which it was possible to work with colleagues in the USA. I just wonder why?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I do not know why, because, in fact, this meeting was organised by Ian Joint, who is at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory; so I do not understand that statement at all. Maybe you have picked up on one person's involvement; but, very often, certainly in my view, we have had quite good relationships with the United States in a number of different areas, particularly in the marine environment. There are major laboratories in the United States which are working collaboratively with us; if you look at Woods Hole, if you look at Scrips, there is a lot of activity going on between the two.

Linda Gilroy: Can I say, Chairman, I looked at that comment and wondered if we had picked that up correctly, because my recollection was that they were saying almost it was easier to collaborate with European and US colleagues than it was with UK colleagues.

Q71 Chairman: Collaborate internationally?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think probably that is true.

Q72 Dr Spink: I am glad you have cleared that up for us, Howard; thank you very much. I phrased my question carefully because I was not at the meeting so I did not hear the comment. There are many facets of research in the ocean; there is impact on climate, there is biodiversity, there is mineral extraction, all of that, there is navigation, there is coastal erosion. Do you find that particular countries have particular areas of specialisation, or that there is easier research in certain areas, easier collaboration in certain areas rather than others? For instance, are we all collaborating very freely on climate but being very protective in terms of fish stocks, for instance? Do you find any differences?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Certainly there are areas where there is good international collaboration; on climate change there is no doubt that there is, we are all extremely good at sharing information with each other. It is a global problem and we all contribute dramatically to that. When it comes to things like biodiversity of the oceans as well, there again I think there are very good levels of collaboration. I suspect that we punch well above our weight there also.

Q73 Dr Spink: If I could interrupt you; on the biodiversity, on fish stocks, do you not find that nations get a bit protective about their own fish stocks and they are fishing and exploiting it?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Of course; naturally.

Q74 Dr Spink: They do not want to share that data with others, so that they can do what they have to do economically?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I think probably you are right, and intuitively I am sure you are. I do not know the detail sufficiently to be able to tell you how much individual countries become protective about their environment, when it comes to fish stocks. It is a very, very difficult one. I know, in the European Union, there is a lot of debate, as you may well know, and our Fisheries Minister spends a lot of time discussing all of that, but that is wearing my Defra hat and not my IOC mystique hat. There is a lot of good, shared information and resource, and science is very much like that, as you know; it is very much at the international area, but there are areas where there is probably some limited sharing of information. When you talk about flood and coastal management, that is peculiar to the United Kingdom, we have to work towards that particular goal. When it looks at aggregate mining, again, that is something very much to do with the UK. I think there are areas of research where we collaborate very well, where we need to; in others areas, it is not necessarily very important to do so.

Mr Guymer: There is an interesting issue there which arose with the UN, at its General Assembly, calling for the establishment of a global marine assessment, and probably that is the closest that we will come, in our lifetime, to the equivalent of the IPCC arrangement for climate. The consensus was broken by Iceland, which would not allow this to go ahead if it included living marine resources, which made a nonsense of the whole thing, really. Happily, that has been resolved, to the extent that, although Iceland are not part of that, they have stood to one side; but that is an example where a particular nation's political will and stance can endanger a whole international activity.

Dr Spink: Thank you very much indeed.

Q75 Linda Gilroy: Just on international collaboration, we have talked a lot about Europe and the US, which are the countries which stand out in your minds, outside of those arenas, which if not punching above their weight certainly are making significant contributions in the international collaborations in science?

Dr Webb: My impression is that clearly India and China are up and coming and it is inevitable that there are going to be huge amounts of collaboration in future. I say 'inevitable'. The interactions are starting already through the POGO initiative which Trevor talked about earlier.

Q76 Linda Gilroy: Australia?

Dr Webb: After that, Australia is the one nation which springs to mind, and Japan, of course.

Q77 Chairman: I was particularly interested in this issue of international co‑operation, and particularly the use of ships from other nations, not to buy time but to barter time on those. Would it be possible for you to give us a note on that, because we have not got any written evidence on it?

Dr Webb: Absolutely; yes.

Q78 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed, because it was a really interesting comment you made.

Dr Webb: There are a very brief couple of lines in the NERC evidence, but it is a very small amount.

Chairman: Yes; but it was a very interesting point you were making and I think it will be something perhaps to include in our report.

Q79 Linda Gilroy: In some of the evidence we have received, several submissions have mentioned the skills base for marine science weakening to the point where some specialities are being lost, and particularly taxonomy has been mentioned, difficulties with recruiting numerate PhD, post-doctoral staff, as an ongoing problem, and perhaps deep-sea biology. What are IACMST and NERC strategies to ensure that there are the necessary skills?

Dr Webb: I would start by making the point that NERC has tried actively to encourage engagement between its researchers and the university sector, to try to stimulate the younger students to come through to fill some of these gaps. As part of the evidence for that, the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory has moved from Bidstone to Liverpool, within the University of Liverpool; of course, in Southampton, we have the National Oceanography Centre, which was moved down from IOS, the Institute for Oceanographic Science, at Wormley. Also we have the Sea Mammal Research Unit, which has moved from Cambridge up to St Andrew's University. We have tried to stimulate interest in the marine sciences and attract students to fill these gaps that way. In terms of the skills gap, clearly the research councils are aware there are issues; attracting highly numerate scientists to the environmental sciences is an ongoing issue. In the past, NERC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded an environmental maths and stats programme, which provided £31/2 million worth of funding to target studentships at this area and then, hopefully, keep them on this career path, which would allow them then to move on to, let us say, the oceanic modelling, which is another area of weakness which we know about, within that. As part of NERC's emerging strategy, we will be looking to do a gap analysis when it comes to skills and to target these areas in ways which might include, as I said before, the environmental maths and stats course, so specifically target these areas.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: I could say something very briefly about it, because it is not a major activity of ours in IACMST, we concentrate more on trying to stimulate the activities between given government departments. It was true that the precursor to IACMST, the CCMST as it was in those days, did recognise this as an issue, and that the skills base, even then, was being somewhat eroded, and tried to stimulate industry to try to interact much more with the higher education institutions so that there could be a more active engagement for the universities to have an identification of the sorts of needs that it would have and the skills it would require in the future. That is still an issue and it is still something that IACMST talked a little bit about, but it is not very high up on the agenda, I am afraid.

Mr Guymer: IACMST does engage in some discussions with representatives of industry, and recently we have had the Institute for Marine Engineering, Science and Technology join as full members of IACMST, and talking with them and the Marine Information Alliance we have identified not only that some skills which were needed in the past have declined but also that there are emerging needs, particularly surrounding the area of operational oceanography, where we are not well placed to provide the sorts of skills which industry perceives that it needs. We have been discussing with those bodies how we should address that, probably initially with a working group, which pulls together NERC and those industry bodies, and indeed government departments, the Met Office, to discuss this. What we have done also is have a meeting involving representatives of industry and the National Oceanography Centre, which of course is embedded within a university environment, and specifically we discussed how we might set up an MSc in Operational Oceanography; so those discussions are ongoing. I think those are indicative of the kind of facilitating role which IACMST can play just to help meet the emerging needs. We need to have a better understanding of industry's and government departments' present needs and what they anticipate they are going to be in the next ten to 20 years, and then establish a strategy to meet those.

Q80 Linda Gilroy: The Environmental Research Funders' Forum has been doing a review of training requirements; what do you expect to emerge from that?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Up to last week I had chaired the Environmental Research Funders' Forum. I have now stepped down from that. One of the things that we were very concerned about was ensuring that the right skills were being brought through the system in order to meet what we perceived, in some areas, as being skills shortages. We have commissioned that report; hopefully that will give us some indication as to where the future needs are going to be. We just have to wait for it to come out.

Q81 Linda Gilroy: What is the timescale on that? Can we have a note, if you are not certain?

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes, I can do that. I am not sure exactly when it will be produced; it should not be too long.

Dr Newton: The agreed forward work programme AVERT(?), to look at this training issue, is very similar to what is in NERC's draft strategy on training, so NERC is going to play a prominent role in that. The only other area that we have not touched on is education in schools, which is an important part of this. It is not within the research councils' remit but, for example, some of the Oceans 2025 institutions have programmes they run with schools, through Science in Society, to try to raise awareness, and I think RCUK is looking at ways it can interact with the Department for Education and Skills, again to start thinking about how we influence things at the schools level.

Q82 Linda Gilroy: Turning to the research vessels, again we have had some evidence expressing concerns about some of that. I am particularly interested to know what long-term plans NERC has to provide inshore research vessels?

Dr Webb: In the longer term, we have a Capital Programme now for the replacement of The Discovery, which is a large, oceanic ship. Through the NERC's barter arrangements I talked about earlier, we have access to a portfolio of other facilities, which includes smaller ships, when the demand is there from the science community and where we have access to what you would call more coastal or continental shelf type ships, through those barter arrangements. The whole idea of the barter arrangements is that it does not need to own every type of facility, and if the French have got smaller ships then why not use those; it is not very far away. One other point to make; through the Joint Infrastructure Funding, NERC awarded the University of Bangor what you would call a coastal and continental shelf ship, called the Prince Madog, and that is available as a NERC 'pay as you go' facility. As I understand it, that has availability year on year, so that would suggest, at the moment, that we are meeting the demand. I would suggest there is not strong evidence that NERC is not able to provide access to the ships which the science is demanding.

Q83 Linda Gilroy: When people tell us that the UK research fleet has reduced in size, are you saying that is more than made up for, or made up for, by access to barter or other sources?

Dr Webb: I think there is little doubt that the UK fleet has contracted over the last 20 years. I also think it is true to say that, through the barter arrangement, NERC is optimising the use of those facilities. If you look at the programme now, you will see very little evidence in the Cruise programme of large passages, because NERC is using all of the available time to programme in foreign cruises on its own ships. By doing that, I would suggest that you could say, arguably, if NERC was not involved in the barter arrangements we might need two and a half ships, or three ships, to do what we do currently with two. In terms of science demand, we are meeting all of the demand at the moment, but if the demand is high and the pressure on marine planning is high then it may be that over time - - -

Q84 Linda Gilroy: It will increase with the Marine Bill, assuming that goes through the House, and the marine management organisation?

Dr Webb: Yes.

Q85 Linda Gilroy: Is that an area we should be concerned about and we should be looking at, in terms of our recommendations in this report?

Dr Webb: I find it hard to comment, to be honest. I believe there is capacity at the moment in the UK to charter what we would call more coastal ships. It may be that there is a need for some new resource but I do not know how strong the arguments are for that.

Q86 Linda Gilroy: Is anybody looking at value for money across what is available, at the moment?

Dr Webb: In terms of the NERC fleet, as part of the evidence base which NERC had to build to submit a case to OSI for capital funding for the replacement of The Discovery, we had to make a compelling case that we were using our existing facilities effectively and that there was the demand there to use them. I hope that answers your question.

Q87 Linda Gilroy: Is that something to which we can have access, to see what the issues are around that?

Dr Webb: Yes; certainly I can give you the case which NERC made for that facility.

Q88 Chairman: On that note, we will bring this first session to an end. Can I thank you very much indeed, Mr Trevor Guymer, Dr Philip Newton and Dr Mike Webb, and, in particular, could we thank you, Professor Dalton, Howard, for not only this session but for all the help that you have given to this Committee. We understand that you are leaving Defra sometime in the future, so this may be your last appearance before us, and, very, very sincerely and genuinely, can I thank you for being always really a very obliging, very supportive and very informative witness, and we wish you well. Also, could I apologise to the witnesses for Members coming in and out. We do not meet normally on a Tuesday morning, we have rearranged this to meet some other diaries, and there are two other Committees occurring this morning, including the launch of the Mental Health Bill Committee Stage, which Members are on. It was not because they were disinterested in your replies, it was because there were other things going on, and members of the Science and Technology Committee are in huge demand, all over the House.

Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We know that; we are delighted.

Chairman: Thank you very much.

Examination of Witness

Witness: Professor Gideon Henderson, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, gave evidence.

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.

Q100 Linda Gilroy: On the input to Oceans 2025 and the draft strategy, I think probably you have been observing the evidence we received earlier. Do you want to elaborate on that to the Committee, and in particular there seems to be some uncertainty over how long the consultation period was; have you got a clear recollection of what that was and can you tell us how it looked from your point of view?

Professor Henderson: I cannot answer the specific question. I do not know how long the consultation was. I think probably my written remarks are too strong here. There was, as I discover now, some consultation, but I would like to make two general remarks about that. The first is, that consultation was quite short, it was a compressed timescale, I do not know how long, but I certainly and most people that I spoke to in the university sector were unaware of the consultation. That is in marked contrast, for instance, with the NERC strategy document which is being consulted on now, where there is widespread awareness and discussion in the community about that document.

Q101 Linda Gilroy: Your remarks are set in the overall context of what Brian Iddon said to us earlier, which is that there is a general consultation period, I think it is 12 weeks, three months?

Professor Henderson: I am afraid I do not know the actual number.

Q102 Linda Gilroy: You are familiar with that sort of cycle, so you are phrasing your comments within what you are accustomed to in other consultations; is there a comparison that you are making?

Professor Henderson: I suppose I am, but in particular I am drawing a contrast between Oceans 2025 and other things that I have seen through NERC where the consultation has been more full. The other comment that I would make, and this is, I suppose, the more important of the two, is that the document which was consulted on is the outline document only, which lays out the general purpose of Oceans 2025 and describes the ten themes within it briefly and just the titles of the work packages. From a scientist's perspective, all the science is going on in those work packages; that is where actually you need to see the details to know if the document is going to meet the strategic objectives for the country. There are ten proposals, as I understand it, one for each of those themes, and those documents have never been made available to the wider community, there has been no open access to those. Requests for those documents have been turned down and, as I understand it, those theme proposals are still not accessible to people in the university sector, unless they happen to be a formal reviewer, invited into that process.

Q103 Dr Spink: Could I ask you to tell us, do you think that this was an oversight on NERC's part, on Oceans 2025, or do you think they had some underlying strategy in rushing the consultation or not making it quite as open as previous and subsequent consultations? Do you think that there was a competitive element in this?

Professor Henderson: I think the latter may be true, but it relates to a structural issue here and the fact that this document is describing the science which individuals and research groups want to do within the institutes in the next five years, which naturally they want to have some sort of ownership of and they may be reticent to disseminate those ideas too widely. In another funding route, where there is competition between different proposals, that would seem entirely appropriate, that there was not completely open access, but in a situation like this, where there is no competition, it is not possible for other groups of people to bid for the funding, that seems inappropriate and there should be complete openness of some of that policy.

Q104 Linda Gilroy: Looking to the future on that, in terms of the balance in support of marine research in the universities and the centres, and particularly what we heard earlier about probably substantial underfunding in the marine science sector, what are your observations on that balance and what would you like to see in the future, if indeed it proves possible to expand the commitment of resources to marine science?

Professor Henderson: I think the thing that is missing in the UK at the moment, and which I brought up in my written statements, is that in the university sector it is pretty difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to strategic funding. I think, if there was a more open system in which the universities could bid for either the present pool of resources or an expanded pool of resources, you would see quite quickly universities stepping up, apart from the ones which are already doing some research, you would see additional universities stepping up to do high quality marine research, to fill gaps that are in the strategic goals of the country in marine resources. Just to take an example from this morning, one of the previous panellists mentioned the fact that the UK now is fairly weak in modelling of the oceans and perhaps modelling physical oceanography as well of the oceans, and that is an area where I know there is active interest in the university sector, in my own University and in others, to do more work, but it is quite difficult to tap into the necessary resources at the moment. I think you would find other examples like that and probably in the biological realm as well.

Q105 Linda Gilroy: You have already mentioned the ability of universities to bridge the research councils; is there also a contribution which universities can make there, not just, I think you were mentioning, climate change but also the issue I mentioned earlier about health sciences and the ocean sciences?

Professor Henderson: Certainly, there is. I think that the universities, by their nature, strive to be universal, at least they used to, and they study many different aspects of the environment, including health sciences and many of the biological aspects of the environment, and I think, in some ways, they are the natural home for some of this interdisciplinary work. I would concur with what we heard earlier this morning, that it can be difficult to work out which research council should be funding your research, and personally I have had this experience and have had conservations with many other people who have had difficulty when you fall between the gaps of research councils. That is something which the universities can do a good job on, but only inasmuch as the research councils move with them.

Q106 Linda Gilroy: From your point of view, irrespective of the balance, are the national facilities provided by NERC adequate?

Professor Henderson: Do you mean, by the 'national facilities', things like provision of ships?

Q107 Linda Gilroy: Yes, and the facilities in the research centres?

Professor Henderson: I am not sure I understand. Are you asking me whether, if I go to the centres, they provide what I need, as a scientist, or are you asking do they provide what the Government needs and the country needs?

Q108 Linda Gilroy: I suppose what I am saying is, are the facilities which are available, which tend to be concentrated at the moment in NERC and its research centres, adequate, in terms of the challenges that we face in the marine science sector, and I suppose it is also about the balance issue again between NERC and the work that is going on in the universities?

Professor Henderson: I would say that they are adequate but certainly that they could be improved. I think the room for improvement is seen if you compare the reputation of UK ocean sciences with that in some other countries, and certainly I would say that other national marine labs have a better reputation than the ones in Britain, at the moment. I think that we have room for improvement and one way to affect that would be to introduce more competition into the system and involve the university sector more.

Q109 Linda Gilroy: Are there particular international examples you would point us in the direction of looking at?

Professor Henderson: I think the two international centres which probably are recognised as being the best, or two of the best, in the world are Woods Hole, which you have heard about, and also Kiel, in Germany, and of the European ones I think the Kiel Institute is probably permanent.

Q110 Linda Gilroy: Is there anything further you would like to say about the input you were able to make to Oceans 2025?

Professor Henderson: In terms of the specific science of Oceans 2025, as I said, I find that difficult. As an example, as far as it goes down in the detail, there is a working package here, called Plankton communities and biogeochemistry; that is to choose just one random one. Plankton communities and biogeochemistry could mean many, many different things; that is an extremely wide remit to describe in three or four words. As a scientist, I am not able to work out how much detail is in the theme proposals, which I have not seen, and it is very difficult for me to comment in detail about the science, as a consequence. That is even more of a problem, I think, in this document, when we look at SOFI, because SOFI, as it is described in here, says simply there will be many opportunities for university scientists to link with this document, and further discussion of that is left for the theme proposals. In the absence of having seen those theme proposals, it is not possible for me to know where those areas of interaction between the university and the research councils are, so I find it difficult to tell you whether this document really covers marine sciences adequately.

Q111 Dr Spink: Did you have any input into it?

Professor Henderson: Yes.

Q112 Mr Newmark: What incentives are there for young researchers to pursue a career in marine science in the UK, financially and otherwise?

Professor Henderson: Perhaps I have a naïve view, from the university sector, but I think interest often is one of the incentives which gets people into the subject, and I think that happens often at university level. People who come in and are exposed to oceanography gain an interest in it, and then, as we heard earlier, there is a lot of activity in the marine realm in the UK so there are many job opportunities for people who are trained at university in ocean sciences and become interested in it.

Q113 Mr Newmark: Has the whole profile of climate change and everything related to that led to far more people suddenly applying to universities, or has there not been that much change?

Professor Henderson: I think it is true to say there has been an increase in particular subjects related to climate change.

Q114 Mr Newmark: In marine courses, specifically?

Professor Henderson: I do not know the statistics on that; there are relatively few courses which are specifically marine, and often those are in the institutes, and I would have to refer you to them for their enrolment numbers. In the subjects related to climate and the environment there has been a modest increase, but there are not actually that many courses offered in the UK in those subjects, particularly not in some of the leading universities, and that is something which I think probably should be addressed.

Q115 Mr Newmark: If there are not that many courses, I am assuming demand exceeds supply so is the quality of people increasing, or is there no change in the quality?

Professor Henderson: I think probably I am not the right person to answer that. I can tell you the specific example of Oxford, and in Oxford we do not teach a specific ocean course, we teach it as modules within two of our courses. One of those is physics, and I think that physics has been a route to get people into oceanography which has been very successful; we need to have highly numerate people coming into the field, as was said this morning. In that area, really it is the quality of the teaching and the research in the university that will inspire students to do it.

Q116 Mr Newmark: Is there a skills shortage of people who actually teach those courses, or not, in your view?

Professor Henderson: No, I do not think there is a skills shortage.

Q117 Mr Newmark: Do you feel that marine science and technology graduates are adequately prepared for post-graduate courses and advanced academic studies?

Professor Henderson: That is a difficult question to answer. I think that some of them are, but it depends on what sorts of students you want to bring into post-graduate courses.

Q118 Mr Newmark: Smart ones?

Professor Henderson: Yes, smart ones obviously, but I think 'smart' these days means numerate as well.

Q119 Mr Newmark: You do feel, to succeed in this particular field, you do need to have good numeracy skills?

Professor Henderson: I think that is true and probably there is a weakness in that area. I think that scientists who have been trained at undergraduate level in this country often are not ending up being sufficiently numerate then to go off and really make an impact in research.

Q120 Dr Spink: Are many of the post-grads from abroad in this discipline?

Professor Henderson: A fair number, yes. I am afraid I do not have the statistics to hand but there is a fair number. That is a number probably I could put my hand on, if you wished.

Q121 Dr Spink: Where are they coming from, Asia or further afield?

Professor Henderson: There is a fairly large number from Asia; we see quite a lot from Australia as well and from America, although the Americans generally want to stay in their country, but there is a certain amount of exchange between.

Q122 Mr Newmark: I guess, having got your education and gone through the whole process, at the end of the day, is there a skills shortage in areas around marine science and technology or not, and, if so, how is that gap being filled?

Professor Henderson: From an industry perspective, I find that quite difficult to answer because I am not in that sector. I can see, from a research perspective, that there is a looming skills shortage and we are seeing subjects which Britain used to be strong in, and again physical oceanography would be a good example, become weaker because fewer people are going into that field. I think, certainly from a research and both a strategic and non-directed research point of view, there is a looming skills shortage in some areas.

Q123 Chairman: Professor Henderson, you sounded very gloomy this morning and your evidence was a little gloomy; do you think you reflect other academics, in other universities, in the marine science area, in your frustrations, particularly with Oceans 2025 and NERC?

Professor Henderson: I do. As I think I said in my document, I became aware of this only quite late in the process, but from informal discussions before writing the document and since, with people, I think there is a general level of frustration about how able we have been in the past to influence NERC strategy in the marine area and to tap into strategic funding, and that is widespread. Many people in my direct field and similar fields feel that we are doing strategically important work for the country but we are not able to tap into funding for that work.

Q124 Chairman: If you had to write a chapter in our report about how to rectify that situation, so you would all be singing and dancing again, what would be the sort of main recommendation you would make?

Professor Henderson: I think the main recommendation is to open up the bidding process for strategic research to involve many more institutes so it is not a closed shop. You cannot break that down to very small projects because it would become too cumbersome, but to enable consortium groups to come in and bid for aspects of the strategic research.

Q125 Chairman: Is it not important to have the strategy first of all, so that, if you like, there is an agreed common strategy which then you can bid for; and that seems to be the bit you are most aggrieved about, that you have not been able to make real inputs into the strategy?

Professor Henderson: I am not sure it is true to say that is the bit I am most aggrieved about; I may be aggrieved about.

Q126 Chairman: One of the things you are aggrieved about?

Professor Henderson: I think it would be much easier to build a strategic consensus if all the people who were interested in marine science thought that they could get some money out of it, at the end of the day. The problem is it is difficult to involve people in the process when they think that they are going to be excluded from the final result. I think you would find it impossible to build a strategic consensus.

Q127 Linda Gilroy: I have one question, which has just occurred to me, about dissemination of research by NERC. How does that look, from where you are standing; are they good at disseminating research, from the universities' point of view?

Professor Henderson: To the public, or to Government?

Q128 Linda Gilroy: I think to people who would be interested in it, in university communities, but to the public as well, if you want to comment on that, because that is important, of course that is important, as well?

Professor Henderson: I think NERC are certainly improving and I think that they are getting pretty good at disseminating to the university sector. I think probably there is still further to go and one way to do it might be to have in universities a formal NERC liaison person who was responsible for making sure that the right people had seen the right documents within the university.

Q129 Linda Gilroy: It is more proactive, perhaps?

Professor Henderson: Perhaps more proactive. It might not be a NERC person, it might be someone from the university who was identified as a liaison person. These days, we get so many e-mails from so many institutes that knowing which are the important ones is difficult, and someone who can help sift that and make sure that the right documents are on the right desks would help the transfer of information, I think.

Chairman: We hope our report will go some way to supporting the work that you do, and indeed the institutes. Professor Gideon Henderson, thank you very, very much indeed for your evidence this morning.