CHAPTER 7: Conclusions and Recommendations
7.1. In this chapter we set out our conclusions
and recommendations in full. The numbers in brackets refer to
the relevant paragraphs in the text.
Chapter 2: The role of systematic biology in the
delivery of policies
7.2. Measuring progress towards halting the decline
in biodiversity is a key international obligation which cannot
be achieved without baseline knowledge of biodiversity. Creating
baselines and monitoring change is dependent upon the availability
of taxonomic expertise across the range of living organisms. (para
2.13)
7.3. Systematic biology underpins our understanding
of the natural world. A decline in taxonomy and systematics in
the UK would directly and indirectly impact on the Government's
ability to deliver across a wide range of policy goals. (para
2.14)
Chapter 3: Health of the discipline in the UK:
professional taxonomists, volunteers and recruitment
7.4. We recommend that a study should be commissioned
by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to ascertain
the current number of taxonomists in the UK and also trends in
the number of taxonomists in the UK. (para 3.1)
7.5. The Committee believes that the major taxonomic
institutions alone will not be able to meet demand for taxonomy.
It is therefore, in our view, critically important that there
should be more effective and regular dialogue between the users
and the producers of taxonomy on the priorities for developing
UK systematic biology. Such dialogue should be facilitated by
the Research Councils. (para 3.21)
7.6. We welcome the Government's commitment to
promoting voluntary action. The work of the volunteer community
is crucial to the vitality of systematic biology. But the voluntary
effort is patchy, tending against non-charismatic organisms and
in favour of the charismatic. We urge the Government, with the
assistance of the taxonomic institutions, to show more leadership
in this matter and to take steps to promote voluntary action,
giving particular attention to those sectors which cover the less
charismatic species.
(para 3.24)
7.7. In view of the Committee's concern that
demand for taxonomic skills will exceed supply, stimulating the
recruitment of new researchers and new volunteers is vitally important.
(para 3.25)
7.8. In order to promote awareness of environmental
sustainability as an over-arching issue, we consider that, as
a matter of high priority, a greater component of biodiversity-related
topics, including taxonomy, should be included school curricula.
Field study trips and other practical exercises, which have served
to introduce generations of children to the diversity of living
organisms, should be encouraged as a means of engaging and stimulating
young people (as future volunteers) to become involved in biological
recording. (para 3.28)
7.9. We welcome the Government's acknowledgement
of the importance of the Renaissance in the Regions programme
in providing additional resources for regional museums. At the
same time, we urge the Government, through the appropriate funding
agencies, to ensure continuity of funding to sustain curation,
taxonomic work and outreach in the regional museums. (para 3.29)
7.10. We recommend that steps should be taken,
for example by the establishment of a periodic event, to foster
personal networking between professional and voluntary taxonomists,
the National Biodiversity Network (NBN), and other stakeholders.
(para 3.32)
Chapter 4: Tools and technology for the twenty-first
century
7.11. We have no doubt that the Internet will
play a crucial role in the evolution of taxonomy and it is clear
that further pilot studies in web-based taxonomy involving a wider
range of types of organisms should be undertaken urgently by the
research community. (para 4.3)
7.12. We believe that a roadmap for the delivery
of Internet-based taxonomy should be developed. Furthermore, we
encourage the taxonomic community to come together to take the
lead in its development since, in our view, it will only be effective
if it emerges from the community. The process of developing this
roadmap should be funded jointly by the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council and NERC as a high strategic priority.
(para 4.4)
7.13. The Committee finds the rate of progress
by the UK taxonomic institutions in digitising and making collections
information available to be disappointingly low. Unless a more
strategic view is taken of how they can contribute to the development
of the field of biodiversity informatics, there is a significant
risk of damage to the international reputation of major institutions
such as the Natural History Museum. (para 4.6)
7.14. This Committee recommends that those UK
taxonomic institutions with major biological collections should
develop strategic plans for making biodiversity informatics more
readily accessible to users through the Internet, and that the
Department for International Development should fund selected
digitisation projects that focus on the biodiversity conservation
and sustainability needs of developing countries. (para 4.8)
7.15. The Committee recognises that certain kinds
of big research questions relating to large-scale biodiversity
patterns in space and time can only be addressed using large-scale
data. UK researchers addressing such questions should be able
to apply for Research Council funding to create large scale aggregated
datasets. (para 4.9)
7.16. The Committee is concerned about lack of
co-ordination of barcoding effort nationally and about the potential
for duplication of effort. The efficiency of barcoding as a diagnostic
technique increases in proportion to the number of different species
barcodes available for comparison. In the case of plant pathogenic
fungi, we recommend that UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group
(UK BRAG) addresses the task of how best to co-ordinate barcoding
effort across the UK. (para 4.12)
7.17. The Committee recommends that NERC supports
research into developing an effective, functioning interface between
rapid taxonomic techniques such as metagenomics and traditional
morphological taxonomy. (para 4.14)
7.18. In view of the continuing success of the
NBN in accessing and serving data, and its importance in engaging
with and empowering the large voluntary sector involved in biological
recording nationally, the Committee urges Defra to assist the
NBN in moving towards a less fragile funding model.
(para 4.22)
Chapter 5: Funding
7.19. The approach of NERC to funding taxonomy
appears confused. We are very concerned that the mixed signals
perceived within the taxonomic community are detrimental to the
transparency which should characterise scientific discourse. We
invite NERC to make a clear statement setting out its approach
to the funding of taxonomy. (para 5.6)
7.20. We recommend the establishment of a new
process for commissioning the production of identification keys
and field guides, involving joint actions between users setting
priorities, funders supporting fixed-term appointments, host institutions
providing access to collections and literature resources, and
established series publishers producing the volumes. We also recommend
that UK BRAG should explore the options for commissioning the
production of new and updated identification guides for the UK
fauna and flora. (para 5.8)
7.21. Whilst we understand that there are always
many pressures on Government funds, we are concerned about the
future of the CAB International (CABI) fungal reference collection
given its significance to the stability of fungal systematics.
Its loss would deepen the crisis in fungal taxonomy. We urge the
Government to acknowledge this significance and to take steps
to secure the CABI fungal reference collection into the future.
(para 5.10)
Chapter 6: Government awareness
7.22. The Committee received evidence of widespread
concern from the user community about the health of systematic
biology in the UK and concludes that the system for communicating
this concern is not working. We find the lack of awareness, at
Research Councils UK-level, of the state of UK systematic biology
to be very worrying. (para 6.8)
7.23. It is clear from the range of evidence
we received that the perception that the Research Assessment Exercise
(RAE) criteria do not favour systematics is still widespread in
the UK biodiversity research community and that the RAE is still
having a negative impact on the choices of career-minded scientists
in taxonomy. (para 6.13)
7.24. The Committee recommends that in developing
the replacement mechanism for the RAE—the Research Excellence
Framework—the Higher Education Funding Council for England
should take into consideration the way that citation-based metrics
disadvantage systematic biology and also the bias that would be
introduced if grants-based metrics were employed, given that pure
taxonomy is not deemed fundable by the Research Councils. It is
essential that criteria appropriate to systematic biology research
should be incorporated into the new mechanism. (para 6.14)
7.25. Given the baseline studies of the health
of systematic biology already available in our reports published
in 1992 and 2002, we recommend that the Environment Research Funders'
Forum should seek to identify trends in the state of the discipline
when making their review. We also recommend that the Forum should
programme a follow-up assessment to take place within five years
of their first review. (para 6.16)
7.26. We recommend that there should be a lead
Government department responsible for systematic biology and that
further, because the central issue is the state of health of the
discipline, we recommend that Department for Innovation, Universities
and Skills should take on that role. (para 6.20)
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