Supplementary evidence from the Research
Councils UK (AHRC, BBSRC AND NERC)
1. The total NERC budget for responsive mode
funding over five years (ie what proportion of the total does
the £7 million spend on taxonomy constitute) (Q55). The Committee
would also like to know these figures for BBSRC responsive mode
funding and how much of NERC's and BBSRC's budget is spent on
systematics and taxonomy studentships.
NERC
1. The systematics and taxonomy research
supported by NERC is effectively classified as a subset of biodiversity
research[58].
Over the five years from 2002 to 2006, NERC awarded £104.2
million in responsive-mode grants for projects judged by the applicants
to include at least an element of biodiversity research, and £11.3
million of that was for projects judged by them to include systematics
and taxonomy (under "Science Topic"). This means that
nearly 64 per cent of all responsive-mode funding in 2002/03-2006/07[59]
went to projects considered by applicants to include a biodiversity
component, and nearly 7 per cent to projects considered to include
a systematics and taxonomy component, involving 62 per cent and
approximately 8 per cent of awards, respectively.
2. The size of the component judged to correspond
to biodiversity or systematics and taxonomy research depends to
a large extent on how many other issues or topics the applicant
considers to be relevant. If others are chosen as well, the percentage
"allocated" to biodiversity or systematics and taxonomy
is inevitably lower. Therefore although over half of the biodiversity-related
and a quarter of the systematics and taxonomy-related project
funding in 2002-2006 was classified by applicants as corresponding
to those subjects, these proportions may underestimate the real
contribution, particularly at the Science Topic level. Many relevant
projects are classified under other relevant Science Topics in
addition to or instead of systematics and taxonomy, for example
under population genetics and evolution, environmental genomics,
environmental microbiology, and palaeobiology. With the move to
more molecular approaches to systematics and taxonomy, classification
under the environmental genomics Science Topic has become increasingly
common. We therefore stress that the figures quoted in the first
paragraph (and below) regarding investment in projects including
systematics and taxonomy should be considered as the minimum investment
in this area.
3. The figures in the first paragraph do
not include funding for biodiversity or systematics and taxonomy
through programmes, national capability, fellowships or studentships.
Programme grants including systematics and taxonomy amounted to
£2.4 million over the five years from 2002-2006, of which
roughly one fifth was judged by the applicants to be classifiable
as systematics and taxonomy.
4. Over the five years from 2002-2006, 9
of the 154 fellowships awarded by NERC included an element of
systematics and taxonomy. Their total value was just over £2
million, of which £0.3 million was classified by the applicants
as systematics and taxonomy. In the three years 2005 to 2007[60],
42 of the PhD studentships awarded by NERC included systematics
and taxonomy; 412 were classified under biodiversity. The respective
annual averages of 14 and 137 compare with an annual average of
332 PhD studentships awarded by NERC over the financial years
2005-06 and 2006-07[61].
The cost per student is generally around £70,000 over the
three years of the studentship; it varies according to the location
(need for London allowance) and the extent of fieldwork involved.
The average allocation in the period 2005-2007 for systematics
and taxonomy PhD studentships was therefore in the region of £1
million per annum.
5. The reference to "£7 million
over five years" in this question and in Q55 (11 March 2008)
requires correction, as does the reference to "£7 million
since 2000" made in the answer to Q54. The latter should
have referred to grants (responsive mode and programme
grants) and fellowships awarded since 1996; it did not
include national capability funding or studentships. To confirm,
it referred to the component of the grants allocated by the applicants
to systematics and taxonomy (see comments above). We apologise
for not correcting these points sooner.
BBSRC
6. BBSRC spent £26.8 million on projects
that include systematics and taxonomy through responsive mode
between 2002-3 and 2006-7 (using the definition of systematics
and taxonomy from the Committee's 2002 report What on Earth?[62]).
This represents 5 per cent of the BBSRC responsive mode budget
in that period or 2.1 per cent of the overall BBSRC budget. This
figure does not include funds spent on systematics and taxonomy
projects through initiatives, institute projects or studentships
which would have contributed an additional £30 million in
that period.
7. In 2006-7 BBSRC spent £0.58 million
on studentships involving systematics and taxonomy research, equivalent
to 1.44 per cent of the BBSRC studentships budget or 0.2 per cent
of the overall BBSRC budget.
2. Any views the witnesses may have, on reflection,
on the possible impact of the end of the HEFCE-funded and AHRC-administered
museums and galleries programme on university museum collections
(Q63).
8. There is an agreement between AHRB/C
and HEFCE that in 2009 the arrangement where the AHRC distributes
core and project funding to museums and galleries in English HEI's
on HEFCE's behalf will cease. HEFCE should be approached in relation
to its current plans for that stream of funding beyond this date.
3. How many students currently on NERC-sponsored
MSc and PhD courses are working on purely taxonomy and systematics
or have a substantial element of these subjects in their projects?
(Q65)
9. Of the 40 PhD students currently (at
29 April 2008) registered as holding NERC studentships (including
CASE awards) in the Science Topic of systematics and taxonomy[63];
most of the projects involve using taxonomy; some address taxonomy
per se. Please see Annex for a list of project titles.
10. The numbers of students supported by
NERC on the most relevant masters courses in 06/07 and 07/08,
and the funding provided by NERC, are shown in the table below.
Course title
| Institution | Number
of
students
| | NERC
funding
(£k)
| |
| | 06/07
| 07/08 | 06/07 |
07/08 |
Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants |
University of Edinburgh, School of Biological Sciences
| 8 | 7 | 73 |
75 |
| | |
| | |
| Advanced Methods in Taxonomy and Biodiversity/Biosystematics
| Imperial College/Natural History Museum, Biological Sciences
| 9 | 9 | 86 |
88 |
| | |
| | |
| Biodiversity and Conservation | University of Leeds, Institute for Integrative and Comparative Biology
| 5 | 5 | 38 |
39 |
| | |
| | |
| Biodiversity, Conservation and Management |
University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment
| 4 | 4 | 60 |
59 |
| |
| | | |
11. NERC also funds several other Masters courses relevant
to biodiversity.
4. Any further thoughts the research councils may have
on the proposed Research Excellence Framework and its impact on
taxonomy in particular (Q70).
12. None of the three Councils has anything to add to
the comments made at the evidence session on 11 March at this
stage.
5. How much of the current consortium grants is taxonomy?
(Q75)
13. The "Creating a Taxonomic e-Science" consortium
referred to in the oral evidence falls under the eScience programme
and involves total funding of £0.487 million over 3 years
(2005-2008) to research groups at the Natural History Museum,
the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the University of Oxford. Over
60 per cent of this funding was classified by the applicants as
systematics and taxonomy.
14. Under the Post Genomics and Proteomics programme
there is a consortium investigating "Plant responses to abiotic
stress at range margins: mechanisms and limits to adaptation",
which is receiving £1.345 million over 4 years, of which
5 per cent is classified by the applicants as systematics and
taxonomy—with 40 per cent being classified separately as
environmental genomics.
15. A new consortium (4 years from April 2008) will be
investigating "Chemosynthetically-driven ecosystems south
of the Polar Front: biogeography and ecology". The total
value of the award is £2.111 million. One module of the grant
(£124,000) includes 30 per cent classified as systematics
and taxonomy and 40 per cent classified as population genetics
and evolution. Another module (£575,000) includes 30 per
cent classified as population genetics and evolution.
16. Another consortium in the marine biodiversity also
includes a high proportion of research classified as population
genetics and evolution. The ECOMAR (Ecosystem of the Mid-Atlantic-Ridge
at the Sub-Polar Front and Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone) consortium
is receiving total funding of £1.662 million over 4 years
to 2010, and the applicants classified one quarter of the work
as population genetics and evolution.
6. How many long-term datasets is NERC funding under the
national capability funding stream at the moment? (Q86)
17. The Environment Research Funders' Forum recently
completed a strategic review of the long-term environmental monitoring
schemes in the UK and created a monitoring database[64].
The database includes 42 ongoing long-term schemes (most older
than 20 years) funded by NERC, the majority of them in terrestrial
ecology, freshwater ecology or freshwater chemistry.
18. The ERFF database does not yet include the monitoring
schemes of the Biological Records Centre (BRC). Its activities
and long-term datasets are being transferred in full to Wallingford
(card legacy data is likely to be scanned before the move). The
BRC is fully sustaining its monitoring schemes, including the
Butterfly Monitoring and Harlequin Ladybird schemes, and is sustaining
and possibly increasing its contribution to the National Biodiversity
Network.
7. The research councils are focusing on taxonomic/systematics
outputs. But who is funding pure taxonomic research? Is it not
a problem that universities carrying out this research can't apply
for research council grants to do this, since the research councils
are focussing on outputs?
19. AHRC does not consider this a matter for it to comment
on, and therefore defers to BBSRC and NERC.
NERC
20. NERC expressed the view in its written submission
that it "is not primarily concerned with systematics and
taxonomy per se, focussing instead on using the information,
particularly in the context of how biodiversity contributes to
key ecosystem processes and services." We are concerned that
this has been interpreted as meaning that we don't fund any
of the systematics and taxonomy that underpins, for example, the
ecosystem process research. It is true that we do not fund alpha
taxonomy in vacuo. However, we do fund it, and other systematics
and taxonomy research, where it is required to address important
scientific questions. Our support includes funding for a large
number of projects investigating evolutionary relationships between
species and the species composition of ecosystems. We are also
funding increasing quantities of genomics research with relevance
to systematics and taxonomy.
21. Underpinning systematics and taxonomy is commonly
embedded in the broader research projects when it is not already
available. It is important that applicants consider their taxonomic
needs when applying for funding, and incorporate any underpinning
research in their application. Although applicants can apply for
funding for stand-alone taxonomic research, applications are unlikely
to be successful in the face of stiff competition from proposals
whose scientific importance is more obvious. Essentially, NERC's
funding decisions, based in the case of responsive mode grants
on the recommendations of its peer review college, have to take
into account the finite resources available, and to prioritise
investment where it is most needed to support hypothesis-based
science. NERC therefore has some sympathy with the view expressed
by BBSRC in the final paragraph below regarding the funding of
pure taxonomic research not required for this purpose.
22. One area that could be considered as pure taxonomic
research that we do prioritise is research into taxonomic methods,
ie research into the new molecular techniques, web-based tools
and bioinformatics systems, and we are likely to continue to fund
such research in responsive and programme mode. We are also well
aware of our responsibility to support training in the taxonomic
area, which obviously includes training in pure taxonomy.
BBSRC
23. BBSRC's role is to support high quality basic, strategic
and applied research, training and knowledge transfer towards
an improved understanding of the non-medical biological systems.
BBSRC operates a responsive mode funding mechanism where any proposals
within the remit of the Council can be submitted for funding.
Very few "pure" taxonomy research proposals (ie proposals
to research monographs on specific taxa) are submitted to BBSRC
each year and very few of those have been funded. This is because
it is impossible to establish their competitiveness relative to
other proposals (within or outside taxonomy) unless there is a
strategic argument put forward: eg the understanding of the phylogeny
will inform the utilisation of the organism in research or industry,
it will clarify a particularly important question in evolution
or the methodology to be employed is in some way novel and of
potentially generic application.
24. Unfortunately most pure taxonomy is not motivated
by such factors: the choice is usually driven by the role of the
applicant in collecting, curating and understanding a particular
group of taxa within a museum, herbarium or other collection.
As such, this pure taxonomy is the scholarship integral to the
curatorial role and BBSRC believes that support for taxonomic
research carried out by staff employed in the museums and gardens
should be provided by the parent government departments responsible
for their employment.
RCUK
April 2008
Annex
CURRENT NERC PHD STUDENTSHIPS IN THE SYSTEMATICS AND TAXONOMY
SCIENCE TOPIC
NERC Reference | PhD Studentship Project Title
|
NER/S/A/2005/13593 | A re-evaluation of the carpoids
|
| NER/S/J/2005/13938 | Biodiversity, population structure, and ecology of sarcomonad Cercozoa (Protozoa)
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13224 | Biogeography and Molecular Evolution of Oleria (Ithomiinae)
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13579 | Building and testing a global DNA barcode database of dung beetle assemblages
|
| NE/F009011/1 | Comparative morphometrics of evolutionary changes accompanying major ecological shifts
|
| NER/S/C/2006/14274 | Corals and Climate Change in the Cenozoic: A Case Study based on the Staghorn Coral Acropa.
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14013 | DNA barcoding and phylogenetic information content: studying food webs of woodboring insects
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14217 | Ecology of the intertidal crab Dotilla wichmanni from tsunami-impacted beaches in Thailand
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14347 | Environmental and Geological Controls on the Diversity and Distribution of Sauropod Dinosaurs'
|
| NE/F012128/1 | Evolution of sex and recombination in parasitic protists
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14086 | Evolution of snake venom composition: causes, correlates and consequences
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13358 | Evolution, gene discovery, and lateral gene transfer in the ecoloigically most important soil Protozoa: Cercozoa.
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13357 | Evolutionary Ecology of Avian Malaria.
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13337 | Genetical Ecology and Molecular Evolution in the Genus Plantago
|
| NE/F00222X/1 | Genetics and Evolution of Echolocation
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13252 | Gigantism in palaeozoic arthropods: palaeobiological and phylogenetic perspectives
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14031 | Investigating the impact of Late Quaternary environmental changes using ancient DNA from small mammals.
|
| NE/F006489/1 | Late Palaeozoic wetland plant communities: palaeoecological, palaeobiogeographic and evolutionary significance
|
| NE/F007655/1 | Linking benthic dynamics to pelagic ecosystem functioning in shallow seas
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14303 | Metapopulation dynamics in relation to species distribution across a fragmented landscape: "ground-truthing" herbarium-based conservation assessments
|
| NER/S/J/2005/13506 | Molecular approaches for studying microbial biodiversity in the deep Indian Ocean
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13423 | Molecular evolution and adaptation in pitvipers
|
| NE/F008600/1 | Origins and evolution of invasive weeds
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14052 | Palaeobiology of Silurian trilobites from North Greenland.
|
| NER/S/C/2006/14277 | Phylogeography of the European Schizoporellidae: a combined morphological, molecular and palaeontological approach in a family of fouling bryozoans
|
| NER/S/C/2005/13461 | Population genetics and mating systems of the Long Snouted Seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) and Short Snouted Seahorse (hippocampus hippocampus)
|
| NER/S/J/2006/14365 | Post-glacial expansion and loss of self-incompatibility in Arabidopsis lyrata
|
| NE/F012098/1 | Speciation in plants on an oceanic island.
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14173 | Systematics and functional morphology of fossil and extant Hyracoidea (Mammalia)
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13488 | Taxonomy, Systematics and Evolution of the British Theropod Dinosaur Megalosaurus
|
| NER/S/C/2006/14279 | The Evolution and Palaeoecology of the Woolly Rhinoceros ( Coelodonta antiquitatis)
|
| NE/F006802/1 | The Evolution of Echolocation in Bats
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13931 | The ecology and conservation of island red-backed voles with particular reference to the Skomer vole
|
| NE/F008147/1 | The evolution of animal signalling systems in relation to variation in life history
|
| NER/S/A/2006/14213 | The evolutionary history and phylogeny of (Southern Ocean) King Crab
|
| NE/F008198/1 | The importance of local arthropod diversity in oil palm plantations.
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13222 | The influence of population history, geography, and historical climate change on forest-based diversity in Southern Asia with particular reference to Northwest Indochina
|
| NE/F009534/1 | The presence, distribution and utilisation of novel phosphonate metabolising enzymes in the marine environment
|
| NER/S/A/2005/13317 | The role of photoacclimation upon distribution of hermatypic coral species
|
| NE/F002289/1 | Tomographic investigation of exceptionally preserved arthropod fossils from France.
|
58
NERC asks applicants for grants to classify their research according
to Science Area, Secondary Classification (if appropriate), Environmental
and Natural Resource Issues (ENRI), and Science Topic http://gotw.nerc.ac.uk/classification.asp.
In the context of systematics and taxonomy, the most relevant
ENRI is biodiversity (one of 5 major ENRIs), and the most relevant
Science Topic is systematics and taxonomy. When applicants classify
their research, they must ensure that 100 per cent of the funds
sought are allocated to one or more (up to four out of 51) Science
Topics. NERC does not alter the classifications provided by applicants,
whose allocations may be influenced by perceptions of how their
research proposals will be seen in the light of NERC's strategic
objectives. The figures obtainable from NERC's Grants on the Web
system for allocation to specific Science Topics should be regarded
as estimates only. Back
59
Data on systematics and taxonomy spend from Grants on the Web,
by year of award round; data on total responsive-mode awards from
NERC's annual reports, by financial year. Back
60
Data for earlier years not available. Back
61
Final figures for 2007/08 not yet available. Back
62
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldselect/ldsctech/118/11801.htm Back
63
http://sotw.nerc.ac.uk/list_med.asp?pge=class_scitopic&classtype=Science+Topic&classification=Systematics+and+taxonomy Back
64
http://www.erff.org.uk/data/ Back
| 
