Select Committee on Science and Technology Written Evidence


Memorandum 78

Submission from Professor Shaun Quegan, University of Sheffield

SUMMARY

  1.  The investment by NERC in Earth Observation Centres of Excellence has allowed the UK to produce world-leading science inside a flexible framework that allows NERC to respond to changed priorities.

  2.  ESA provides the route by which most UK scientists are best able to define and execute space missions meeting their goals.

  3.  The NERC Earth Observation programme has been well-supported and allowed good ideas from researchers with drive to be translated into very effective research programmes.

  4.  The links between academia and government agencies as regards use of space data are generally not well developed, largely through the failure to identify mutually attractive aims. A similar comment applies to inter-agency links on use of space.

WHO I AM

  I am the Director of the NERC Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics (CTCD), one of six Centres of Excellence in Earth Observation (EO) set up by NERC in the last five years. Previously I directed the Sheffield Centre for Earth Observation Science, and prior to that I ran the Remote Sensing Applications Group at Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow. Currently I am a member of ESA's Earth Science Advisory Committee and NERC's Earth Observation Expert Group (and its replacement, the EO Directors Advisory Board). I'm also an invited member of the Terrestrial Observations Panel on Climate and the Japanese Space Agency Kyoto and Carbon Advisory Group. From 2001-03, I was a member of the BNSC Earth Observation Programme Board.

FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS

  1.  The investment by NERC in Earth Observation Centres of Excellence has allowed the UK to produce world-leading science (as evidenced by the 2005 Science Management Audit of the EO sector conducted by an international review body) inside a flexible framework that allows NERC to respond to changed priorities. The funding of Centres on renewable five-year contracts (though with an expectation of renewal) allows such a response. It also means that Centre staff have to stay hungry if the funding is to continue, as any weak parts of the Centre programme should be terminated. A further attractive feature of the Centre approach is that it offers the possibility of extended research funding for the brightest Research Assistants and PhDs. Finally, the Centres produce a continual stream of well-trained, skilled researchers across a wide range of disciplines (the latter because the Centres are typically multi-disciplinary). In my experience, most of these people remain within the scientific sector (though not necessarily space-related).

  2.  ESA provides the route by which most UK scientists are best able to define and execute space missions meeting their goals. The UK provides the lead scientist on the Cryosat mission (Duncan Wingham); in the six missions currently being reviewed for the next Core mission, the UK provides lead proposers on two (BIOMASS and PREMIER, respectively rated as numbers 1 and 3 in the initial assessment). However, the success of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) indicates that there are other ways for the UK to provide leadership in the exploitation of space.

  3.  Knowledge transfer is part of the mission of the Centres. The existing Centres are not involved in hardware but in modelling and data exploitation, so that the knowledge being transferred is normally in terms of software (for example, CTCD has made generally available an innovative tool to allow very efficient analysis of the behaviour of complex environmental models, with supporting courses and good take-up). The need for new instruments to meet the science needs of the NERC EO programme is, however, a driver for new technology. A current issue is whether the UK is well-placed to translate these science needs into instruments accepted by the space agencies, in the face of international competition.

  4.  Although University research using space can deliver information of societal benefit, such as indicators of environmental health, the link of this work into the missions of agencies such as DEFRA or the EA is generally poorly developed. In my opinion, most of all this reflects a failure to define common aims that meet the agendas of both types of organisation, rather than the lack of any means of delivering on such aims. This further reflects a number of factors: cultural differences between the agencies and academia, generality vs the specific regional concerns of the UK, and the difficulty of translating academic research into the operational mode often needed by the agencies. The last of these points is perhaps the most telling.

  5.  The NERC Earth Observation programme has been well-supported and allowed good ideas from researchers with drive to be translated into very effective research programmes. Many of these help to deliver public benefit through access to environmental information of various kinds. The take-up by Government departments is patchy, for reasons set out in point 4.

  6.  Currently NERC is reorganising its EO sector. It is expected that there will be significant emphasis on defining areas of common interest between the remit of NERC and those of the various Government agencies, and to specify joint aims for he EO programme. The delivery mechanism to meet these aims will need to be defined.

  7.  The ability to make best use of space data is hindered by the difficulty or expense of access to other datasets, some of it gathered with taxpayers' money. An example is access to soil data for the UK; this absorbed large amounts of time and frustration in CTCD before we arrived at a workable solution.

  8.  My perception of the workings of the EO Programme Board of the BNSC (on which I served from 2001-03) was that it provided little deep analysis of how to maximise the return from space, as vested interests hindered hard discussion of weaknesses.

  9.  The agencies themselves hold significant stocks of (typically airborne) data that would be of great value in helping to develop and evaluate the use of space data. This resource appears to be scattered across organisations and projects, and the UK would benefit from a more coherent treatment of these data. In general, the UK would benefit from better communication between the agencies and clearer definition of common aims or aspirations for space data that could be translated into relevant research programmes or needs for knowledge transfer from the university sector.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  1.  The Centre-based approach used by NERC to develop the exploitation of space data in environmental science provides a focused, cost-effective and very successful approach that should be continued, and could perhaps be extended to other sectors.

  2.  ESA is likely to remain the main organisation through which the space data needs of the UK can be translated into missions. Influence on what these missions are arises primarily from cogent, coherent ideas about what is needed translated into good proposals. The UK needs to ensure that its science base is strong enough to continue generate such ideas. We also need a coherent assessment of the current and future needs of government agencies, married to the science and delivery approaches, so that clear UK messages can be delivered to ESA (and increasingly to the EU if we are to have any influence on the GMES programme).

  3.  Methods to identify commonalities in agency information needs and aspirations, and those of academia, that can be translated into mutually beneficial aims and knowledge transfer activities should be developed. This is likely to require a range of approaches.

November 2006





 
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