Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
Dr Ben Cowell, Dr Miles Parker, Professor Nicola
Spence and Dr Liam Kelly
11 MARCH 2008
Q100 Lord Krebs: I would just like
to be clear in my own mind about Dr Parker's response. We heard
that the BBSRC has little involvement in the support of taxonomy
and NERC is not primarily concerned with systematics and taxonomy
per se. I have not quite got it fixed in my mind which
bit of the overall funding system for science in Britain or the
United Kingdom feels that it has responsibility for taxonomy per
se? Whose job is it?
Dr Parker: I do not think it is any one organisation's
job. I think a good many of us are users of taxonomy and we will
fund appropriate work on taxonomy to meet our own particular needs.
We will draw from quite a number of different sources and we have
had considerable value out of previous NERC and BBSRC initiatives
when developing taxonomy in the past, and you will find people
that came out of that embedded in many of our programmes. We hire
a good many people who we put to taxonomy work but I do not think
that gives us responsibility for taxonomy as a field. As a field
of study that does not seem to me to belong to somebody.
Baroness Walmsley: I have three little questions
that are all linked together. Firstly, Defra states that when
they commission research that requires the input of systematic
work, that will be "factored into the contract", but
we can only assume that that has not succeeded in the case of
systematic mycology because we have had evidence that that particular
discipline is really at crisis point. Our first question is what
is being done to ensure the survival of this discipline and relevant
collections? The second thing is that in its evidence Defra states
that whilst it "is a user of outputs of systematics and taxonomy,
it is not a major utiliser of research from these disciplines."
I think it is not just a philosophical question but a practical
one about what do you think is the difference between research
and outputs. Perhaps I will put the third one when we have voted.
Chairman: You are going to have some time to
think on what your answer is. I am afraid we will have to pause
now while we vote downstairs.
The Committee suspended from 4.53 pm to 5.02
pm for a division in the House
Chairman: One or two of our colleagues are still
stuck in the voting lobbies but will be back here very soon, I
have no doubt. We were in mid question from Baroness Walmsley.
Q101 Baroness Walmsley: We had just
had the one on what is the difference between research and outputs,
and it is not just a philosophical question! The third bit is
we have heard that following the recommendations of our previous
report on this subject, which I chaired, the systematics community
has been quite successful in focusing on user-friendly outputs,
outputs that really are of use to people, and they just do not
feel they can go too much further in that respect and that they
are getting to the point where they are living off capital really,
so what we would like to ask you as self-declared users as well
as funders is what is your response to that claim? You have had
10 minutes to think about those three little questions!
Dr Parker: I will attempt to answer them and
then I will bring in a colleague on the first one. On the issue
of mycology in particular you were asking what I meant by factoring
in particular requirements into contracts. In general, when we
put out a call for tenders and proposals we will describe a problem,
which is usually a policy-based problem, and outline where we
think some of the scientific inputs might be, but we are looking
largely to the science community to look at the problem and tell
us what they think the appropriate avenues are, so we will expect
the scientific community, among other things for example, to identify
that this project might need an input on mycology. That is the
general answer to the question. On the more specific one where
a discipline is of importance and we have realised we are not
getting what we need, we have a number of mechanisms which we
can use to support or develop expertise. We have used fellowships
for example to develop the expertise available to us in areas
such as epidemiology, which was a major shortfall a few years
ago. I would like to turn to my colleague Professor Spence to
tell you about some of the things we have specifically done around
mycology.
Professor Spence: In relation to taxonomic needs
in mycology to support and underpin plant health, Defra will identify,
in conjunction with the science base, where the gaps are and they
have funded taxonomic fellowships which are typically either a
PhD student, possibly a masters programme, or a specific piece
of taxonomic research that needs to be done to support that gap
that has been identified.
Q102 Baroness Walmsley: Is that mainly
in relation to fungi that produce plant disease or are we talking
also about the mycology of soil?
Professor Spence: This would be in relation
to fungi that cause a plant health issue. They might be soil-borne.
Typically a number of soil-borne pathogens are of plant health
concern. One example at the moment which is very topical is phytophthora
diseases of trees, so typically here you have air-borne spores
and you also have spores in the soil so you actually need to look
at the taxonomic needs around the disease risks in that genus
and there is a Plant Health Division of Defra-funded taxonomic
fellowships specifically on phytophthora in order to address
that gap.
Dr Parker: If I can pick up your second question
then just to clarify what we meant here; we are users of taxonomic
skills and many of the people who work on our research programmes
will be ecologists or, for example, plant disease specialists
and so on but they will be applying taxonomic skills in their
work and that was what I was getting at in that response. What
we are not using directly is research on systematics as such.
It is an underpinning science (although obviously the nomenclature
is impossible without systematics) and it is the taxonomic skills
that we make use of.
Q103 Baroness Walmsley: In terms
of the final part of the question, the taxonomic community feel
that they have gone pretty well as far as they can in focusing
on outputs and they are living on borrowed time really. The question
is what about the pure science related to the relationships between
taxa and that kind of thing, who is going to fund that?
Dr Parker: Pure systematics research is a basic
research discipline which I would expect to find in the universities
and normally I would expect to find being funded through the research
councils. That is not a discipline that we would fund. We do not
generally fund disciplines; we invest in areas of research which
will actually play directly to our policy requirements.
Baroness Walmsley: That is an interesting point
there.
Q104 Lord Krebs: Could I just come
back on that because I asked you earlier about responsibility
and we were told by NERC and BBSRC that they do not have responsibility
for funding pure taxonomy, they see themselves as users of taxonomic
research not creators of taxonomic research, so I do sense there
is a slight shifting of responsibility amongst the bodies that
we have been talking to this afternoon.
Dr Parker: I wonder do I need to be clear about
how I am using the terms? I am talking about the skills that we
need in ecological programmes, for example, to ensure that we
are accurately identifying organisms, and that is a skill we unquestionably
need. The underlying science behind that in systematics is not
something that I think is for a government department to fund.
I am aware you asked that question of the research councils but
I think part of the answer of the research councils is that they
have funded a number of initiatives in systematics and that has
in turn led to, for example, people like us employing some of
the outputs from those programmes.
Q105 Lord Warner: I am getting a
bit confused about Defra's role in this area. I would like to
ask a few questions around this. In the previous sub-committee's
follow-up inquiry it was recommended that Defra take the lead
in setting up a new co-ordinating body. That is where we started
from. No new body was in fact set up and Defra in their written
evidence tried to explain why this was not taken forward and I
just quote one bit, it said that: "Defra itself would perhaps
be best positioned not to lead an activity best driven by the
community itself." That seemed to be Defra's position. I
listened very carefully to some of your answers to the first questions,
Dr Parker, where you said Defra had a lively interest in the area,
and you said that it did have a responsibility for co-ordinating
the wider community when you gave an answer to the Lord Chairman,
and you did mention that you saw yourselves as having a role of
co-ordinating across what you called the silos and the boundaries.
I am not quite sure where we are on that. If I could just finish
a little bit more. The UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group
believes that "there remains a need for improved mechanisms
to make user needs known to the taxonomic community and the funding
bodies." So there is a feeling out there to some extent that
there is some need for co-ordination. You seem to accept in your
oral evidence there was a need but the written evidence from Defra
says it is not for us to take the lead. Could you perhaps, for
a simple soul like me, clarify what Defra's role actually is in
this area.
Dr Parker: I think the important distinction
I am making here is between what you might call co-ordination
of systematics and taxonomy as opposed to co-ordination of work
on conservation and biodiversity, and I do not think those are
quite the same thing. In relation to the effort to follow up your
earlier recommendation, when we came to look at the task that
had been put before us there, many of the possible lines of action
that we saw looked to us as if they were going to simply repeat
what had gone before and were not going to take things further
forward. In parallel with that, though, we were putting in place
the thinking that led to the setting up of the Biodiversity Research
Action Group and the Global Biodiversity Sub-Committee because
we did see a real value in co-ordinating research in those areas
across the boundaries. One of the issues that comes up in both
those groups is the availability of taxonomic skills and the underlying
research that leads into those, so these issues have been dealt
with but in a wholly different context, a much broader context,
which is the applications of those areas of science to, in our
case, the policy requirements of biodiversity conservation. I
hope that helps to explain that I am not being totally self-contradictory
in this. One other thing I would say here is you cite BRAG as
saying there would be value in improving the levels of co-ordination
but I think the report itself goes on to say that the answer to
that is provided, at least in part, in the conservation area by
BRAG and by the Global Biodiversity Sub-Committee. There are other
co-ordinating bodies in areas for example like plant health which
are also addressing these issues, but again in the context of
the applications of the areas of science like systematics and
taxonomy in other contexts.
Q106 Lord Warner: But would I be
right in interpreting then Defra's position as meaning that across
the science territory which impinges on Defra's responsibilities,
insofar as you are co-ordinating taxonomy and systematics, it
is within a much bigger framework? You are not actually seeing
those as issues which you need to co-ordinate for themselves for
their own contribution to your capability of research to deliver
for you in the areas for which you are responsible? You seem to
be embedding them in some much bigger co-ordinating mechanism.
Is that my correct interpretation of what you are trying to do?
Dr Parker: I think that is fair but what I am
saying is what we are embedding in that wider co-ordination activity
is the applications and uses of systematics and taxonomy to particular
problems. That is not quite the same as co-ordinating systematics
and taxonomy themselves when you are talking about a discipline
and I do not think that is a job that we would attempt to do or
think we were appropriately positioned to do.
Q107 Lord Warner: What would happen
if your science base was unable to deliver for your research needs,
if there was a shortage of taxonomists and systematicists?
Dr Parker: We have had problems where we have
had shortages in particular skills or specialties before and,
as we touched on in the answer to Baroness Walmsley, the answer
that we have locally within Defra is found in initiatives like
fellowships and so forth which help us to train in some areas
of specialty. Within our own institutions, we do a fair amount
of training in the laboratory and in the field, for people that
we recruit, so there are a number of different ways in which you
can approach that. What the two committees have discussed is the
broader issues, in the context in which they are dealing, of "have
we addressed the requirements for taxonomic skills" and,
yes, that is one of the things that we have discussed, in fact
we are still in the process of discussing.
Q108 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
This question is about EU funding. UK BRAG also submits there
is little recognition for systematics in EU Framework Programmes
and RBG Kew submits that EU funding is mostly focused on networking
and not on delivering projects. I am not quite sure what that
means so perhaps you will explain it to me. If systematics could
be more successful as large-scale science is more delivery-focused
and capacity-directed funding, is that an issue that the Government
should take up at an EU level? Perhaps you could explain what
is meant by "more focused on networking" and not the
practicalities of the issue.
Dr Parker: To pick up the point BRAG was making
in relation to networking and projects, the EU funds in a number
of different ways but two of the bigger ones are direct project
funding through multi-lateral agreements between institutions
in different countries to deliver research projects and, secondly,
funding through a system known as the "ERA-Nets", the
European Research Area Networks, systems which bring together
networks of research funders and the major organisations concerned
with research programmes. This is something that the UK has supported
quite strongly because we see real value in bringing national
resources together and so we found that quite helpful. We would
though part company with BRAG in their interpretation of what
is going on. I would like, my Lord Chairman, if that would be
agreeable to you, to submit some additional information mainly
because I cannot remember the long list of acronyms that applies
to all the projects, but there really is quite a substantial number
of both networks and projects addressing issues around taxonomy
and systematics, largely again in the context of the use to which
these are put. Where BRAG is correct is in saying the framework
programmes do not focus on systematics nor on any other disciplinary
science. What the Framework Programmes focus on is the needs of
the Treaty which are focused on the competitiveness of the European
economy and the other chapters of the Treaty, in other words agriculture
and the other chapters. It is very much a policy-focused set of
programmes. You will find that there is quite a lot of activity
within the European Union but it is largely in an applied context,
and in that context you will find, for example, there is an infrastructure
project which is setting up the sort of network that you are thinking
of and pulling together data providers. There is the Biodiversa
Programme which is fundamentally a network but is also putting
more than €20 million into projects over the next five years
and so on. I can provide a much longer list but actually there
is quite a lot of activity going on.
Q109 Chairman: Additional written
material would be very helpful but on the understanding you translate
the acronyms for us because we do find that we are deluged with
them.
Professor Spence: Perhaps if I can just give
an example, there is a Research Area Network co-ordinated by Defra
in the plant health area. This was identified by the Chief Officers
of Plant Health in Europe as a need and Defra took the lead in
co-ordinating this project, and we now see the benefits of a co-ordinated
approach in that there are research calls and infrastructure calls
coming out of the Framework Programmes which support particularly
research needs but also taxonomic skills to support and underpin
the research around the plant health area, so I think there are
some good examples of where it is quite well-co-ordinated.
Q110 Lord Krebs: I just wanted to
follow up on your comment about the Framework Programme to ask
you whether you know anything about the funding of taxonomic research
by the European Research Council, which does of course fund basic
research and not policy or applied research?
Dr Parker: I cannot answer on that, I am afraid.
The European Research Council issues are largely for the research
councils in the UK. We would be happy to try and follow up the
question but I cannot help.
Q111 Lord Haskel: Continuing the
discussion about Europe, in the Defra evidence you point to the
European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy. You say
this is a forum for identification and prioritisation of research
needs across Europe. At their meeting held in November 2007 they
recommended that "particular attention should be paid to
secure taxonomic expertise on marine organisms and to foster capacity
to deliver appropriate information in support of ecological work".
Who are these recommendations directed at? Where do the recommendations
go? Who picks them up and what happens?
Dr Parker: They go in a number of directions.
The primary direction is to the European Commission and that will
pick them up in terms of proposals it puts forward for the work
programmes under the Framework Programme. Secondly, the EPBRS
recommendations go to people known as European Nature Directors
who are those people in the individual Member States responsible
for biodiversity conservation policy, so at a national level the
directors will receive the advice of the EPBRS and factor that
into their own thinking about their own national programmes. Thirdly,
we pick up EPBRS recommendations in bodies like BRAG and the GBSC
and look at what is emerging in the way of suggestions for prioritisation,
so there is a number of avenues in which they can get back into
the thinking at both the European and national level about what
our next research priorities might be.
Q112 Lord Haskel: Do you have any
impression as to how well these recommendations are picked up?
Are they acted upon or are they ignored?
Dr Parker: No, they are certainly acted upon.
I am sorry I cannot give you an immediate example on that but
certainly the outcomes of EPBRS have played a big part in formulating
the relevant parts of the work programmes under the Framework
Programme and nationally we have picked up on them in establishing
our own priorities. They are one source among a number of others
and there are other bodies doing similar sorts of work but there
tends to be a coincidence in the priorities when you look across
them.
Q113 Lord Haskel: A recommendation
from them would influence you to fund research in that particular
area?
Dr Parker: Yes, not least because our own input
into EPBRS will have come from our own officials and our own participants
in research programme, so reflecting what is going to emerge from
our own thinking about priorities and then the engagement with
other countries.
Q114 Lord Methuen: The most important
environmental issues, such as assessing the impact of climate
change on ecosystems, are global in scale. How can the global
requirements for leadership in the provision of taxonomic training
and research outputs be factored into consideration of national
capacity?
Dr Parker: I would first refer back to the Global
Biodiversity Sub-Committee which is part of the wider Inter-Agency
Committee on Global Environmental Change. This is designed to
help the various funding organisations and various delivery organisations
look at the relative and relevant priorities. Taxonomy is one
of the issues that comes up in that context. The GBSC has discussed
systematics issues several times and in fact we are part way through
a discussion at this point on what the priority issues are. Secondly,
the government departments concerned play a big role in the Convention
on Biological Diversity which itself has identified some of the
key issues affecting the use and availability of taxonomy and
they have identified the "taxonomic impediment". That
in turn has been followed up by action at a national level. We
carried out a national needs assessment a few years ago and we
have been following up the recommendations from that to try and
improve provision in certain areas.
Q115 Lord Methuen: To what extent
do you go outside the UK to gain the experience?
Dr Parker: I am sorry, I did not quite hear
the question.
Q116 Lord Methuen: To what extent
do you consult beyond the EU on what is going on elsewhere in
the world?
Dr Parker: The Convention on Global Biodiversity
is a global affair so the inputs to the discussion there have
been from all sources. Nationally the main sources of expertise
in this area are also very, very well plugged into global networks—Kew
and the Natural History Museum for example.
Q117 Lord Krebs: You described Defra
as a user of taxonomic research to meet your policy objectives,
and obviously over time those policy objectives would change.
For instance, a high priority has been in conservation in relation
to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and it may be that in the future
policies related to ecosystem services could come to the fore.
What I wanted to ask you is whether as the policy changes the
requirement for taxonomic expertise changes and, if it does, how
do you assure yourselves or find yourselves in a position where
you have access to the new kind of taxonomic expertise that you
need for a different policy?
Dr Parker: I do not think the requirement changes
significantly as between the more traditional approaches to conservation
and the ecosystem approach as now applied. What has made a difference
there in particular I think has been bringing economists and others
into the story. Am I missing your point here?
Q118 Lord Krebs: It was an open-ended
question whether the taxonomic expertise that you require changes
and the answer seems to be, no, it is the same kind of taxonomists
that are applying their skills to different questions.
Dr Parker: I think some of the ecological questions
change quite a lot but that is not an area where we have difficulty
in obtaining expertise.
Q119 Earl of Northesk: As we all
know, the UK has a broad range of obligations and commitments
under various EU Directives and UN Conventions and of course these
responsibilities extend to many British overseas territories many
of which have high, in some cases very high biodiversity. Is our
taxonomic capability strong enough to enable us to deliver on
our EU and UN and indeed overseas territory commitments? Flowing
on from that, much the same question as I asked the research councils:
where does responsibility lie to maintain capability in taxonomy
at that sort of global level?
Dr Parker: I am not sure that I can entirely
answer the question, although I would refer back to the answer
I gave Lord Methuen about the role that is played by the Global
Biodiversity Sub-Committee and the work that has been done on
the Convention on Biological Diversity. In relation to the overseas
territories, the Global Biodiversity Sub-Committee did pick up
this issue and we have received a report on the issues that affect
the overseas territories. That is work in progress. We are looking
at the moment at two further issues to do with this, one simply
a matter of costing priorities, because there is always an issue
there, but the other is to look at what the funding streams available
to the overseas territories are. As I understand it, they are
fundamentally responsible for their own ecosystem management but
there are various ways in which they can receive support and help
from the UK.
Professor Spence: Can I add to that that where
there is a regulatory obligation then Defra supports and develops
capacity amongst its delivery bodies, principally the agencies
around fisheries, livestock and CSL.
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