UK government establishes environmental risk centre

A new centre dedicated to helping the UK government understand natural and environmental risk has started work.

The collaborative Centre of Excellence in Understanding and Managing Natural and Environmental Risk is based at Cranfield University and will provide world-leading evidence and expertise on environmental risks, including flooding and adapting to climate change.

The centre will work closely with Defra to assess the probabilities and impacts of these risks and feed this improved information into Defra's policy development. It will also develop and communicate best practice across organisations involved in environmental risk management.

Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser for Defra said:
"Scientific information plays a vital role in finding solutions to the challenges of climate change, natural disasters, and animal diseases. This new centre will be at the forefront of finding ways to assess the risks of issues like flooding and animal and plant diseases and will improve Defra's ability to compare different types of risk and their impacts.

"I am delighted to be working with Professor Pollard and Cranfield University on this exciting project. The centre will be a major asset not only to Defra but to the research councils and other government departments, and will ensure that state-of-the-art risk knowledge is incorporated in decision-making."

Professor Simon Pollard, head of sustainable systems at Cranfield University, who will lead the work of the centre said: "Our focus will be in stimulating the good practice in risk management already within Defra, and assisting Defra colleagues with the strategic appraisal of risks across a very wide risk portfolio. The centre's role will be to develop the tools and techniques to do this, and to provide leading-edge thinking on the sound prioritisation of environmental risks."

The Centre is being jointly funded by Defra, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for 3 years to the value of £1.2million. All partners are contributing £300,000 over three years.

The Centre's work will be guided by an international Strategic Advisory Board. The first meeting of the Board is planned for February 2009, which will agree the forward work plan of the Centre.

For further information about the Science Advisory Council and the risk sub group: http://www.defra.gov.uk/science/how/sac/advisory05e.htm

•Date:6th January 2009• Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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