SAGES 2006-2015

SAGES phase two 2015-2020 www.sages.ac.uk

SAGES Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment & Society

SAGES pools world-leading expertise in geoscience and environmental science from across Scotland’s research base, creating a multi-disciplinary alliance at the forefront of earth and environmental research. Funded network – for mutual befit of members and ultimate beneficiaries of research SAGES Research themes: Landscape Dynamics Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Atmosphere, Oceans and

Climate Society and Environmental

Policy Centre for Earth System

Dynamics

Outline • Introduction • SAGES aims • Investments: SFC + Partners. pre and post 2015 • Structures: Committees, Themes, Fora, Web

Presence, ASM • Resources: Key posts, PEER/PECRE, Theme & Forum

funds, Studentships, shared facilities • Graduate School • New partners / associates • Navigating crowded ‘innovation space’ - getting a

head start • What can SAGES do for you?

Who am I? Stirling Edinburgh Southampton Cambridge Bangor SAMS/UHI SAGES Physics Physical Oceanography ??? Research profile on Google Scholar • Oceanography of fjords: Scotland, Norway,

Svalbard, SE Greenland • Redefining the Assimilative Capacity of Coastal

Systems • Fluxes Across Sloping Topography of the North East

Atlantic • Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic

Programme - OSNAP

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Jones Bank

Research

Education

Lead co-ordinated approaches to strategic environmental research questions, e.g. through strategic RCUK programmes and EU H2020.

Facilitate the international reach and impact of Scottish research in the SAGES+ areas of surface geosciences and at the environmental science and society interface, enhance early-career researcher development, e.g. through RCUK Innovation agenda, and partnership with ECCI

Develop extensive and ongoing engagement with Scottish business and industry, government agencies and NGOs, to deliver sustainable economic impact and highly-trained doctoral graduates, e.g. through Innovation Centre and direct partnership with ECCI.

SAGES AIMS

Widening Understanding

SAGES Investments 2006-15 [£6.45M from SFC + £17.2 = £23.7M total] • People

• Academic staff: 29 new academic staff + 6 post-docs • Technical staff: 2 new appointments • PG students: 16 SAGES studentships + 5 from institutions

• Infrastructure • New equipment: £1.1M of investment funded by SFC + £9.9M from institutions

SAGES+ Investments 2015-20 [£1.05M from SFC + £0.75M = £1.8M total] – drop the ‘+’ and retain the better know name of ‘SAGES’ • Partners

• Committed to retaining SAGES recruits • Facilities sharing in place (at-cost model) • Nine new PG students (50/50 contributions) • Subscription model to match SFC investment

• New capital streams controlled by SFC

SAGES Structures Structure/Activity

• Committees ExCom/RICom

• Themes

• Fora

• Web presence

• Annual Science Meeting

How to get involved / access funding • Talk to your ExCom member

and/or me! • send requests directly to TLs –

talk to me!

• Propose a new one

• Image/content bank opens soon, please talk to Carol

• Come along and give a talk, start a Forum, run a workshop

Themes 1 and 2 Titles may need revision, Descriptors need to be rewritten

Theme 1: Landscape Dynamics • Background rates formation

and erosion: lo-T thermochronology, cosmogenic isotope analysis

• Landscape response to climate change: landscape response to Holocene climate change

• Human response to Holocene landscape change

• Landscape response to future environmental change in wide range of settings

T2: Terrestrial Carbon Cycle • Where are the carbon

sources and sinks? • How stable is the soil

carbon? • Where are the sources of

methane? • What are the lateral

transports of carbon ?

Robert Bingham (Edin) and Robert McCulloch (Stirling)

Susan Waldron (Glasgow) and Kate Heal (Edin)

Themes 3, 4 and CESD Titles may need revision, Descriptors need to be rewritten (except T4)

T3: Atmosphere, Oceans & Climate • What are the mechanisms and

drivers of abrupt climate change? • Can we predict the likelihood of

future extreme events such as floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves?

• How will atmospheric pollution change, and what can we do about it?

• How do the oceanic “gateways” to circulation influence the heat, salt, sea ice budgets and climate of the Northern Seas?

T4: Society and Environmental Policy • Vulnerability and adaptation to

environmental change: • Individual and social behaviour • Carbon management and

energy policy • Ecosystem services &

beneficiaries: • Land use, landscapes, soils • Knowledge exchange • Social simulation &

visualisation

Finlo Cottier (SAMS) Ioan Fazey (Dundee) and Alexandre Gagnon (UWS) Simon Tett (Edin)

SAGES Resources • ~30% on key posts:

– Director (0.6fte) – Mark Inall – Administrator (0.6fte) - Carol Thomson – Research and Innovation Manager (0.5fte) – joint with ECCI – Graduate School Convenor (0.2fte) – interviews 18th May – Deputy Director (0.1fte) – tbc

• ~70% on enabling funds – Themes - £7k pa – Fora – what do you need? – PEER / PECRE - ~£30k pa – Studentships ~9 over 4 years – Enabling (ASM, Internationalisation, Grad School costs)

Infrastructure Resources: 3 examples housed at individual institutions – info needed across all SAGES partners

• Seawater aquarium / Scottish Aquaculture Centre • Modern radio geochemistry facility, ICPMS • Marine biomass research centre • Scottish Marine Robotics Facility (S-MRF) • Inshore research vessels • UK National Facility for Scientific Diving

Example 1: SAMS

D47 Carbonate Clumped Isotope thermometry – MAT 253 IRMS

High-precision Ar-Ar geochronology – Helix SFT

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry – NEC 5 MV and 250 kV AMS

MAT 253 Ultra – high-resolution IRMS

Positive Ion 14C Mass Spectrometer

Example 2: SUERC

SAGES

Example 3: Abertay Centre for the Environment Theme 2: X-ray CT to visualise pore geometry and C inside soil

Graduate School • 22 students part-funded by Scottish Funding Council • currently 35 students are members • approx. half of members are from outside of the UK

• ALL students are co-supervised by 2 or more SAGES member institutions • provide training, networking, career development opportunities

• graduate career prospects excellent

• new part-funded PhDs available

• co-working with MASTS possible

• DTP renewal

• Portal for international entry into Scotland

SAGES New partners and associates

• ECCI – associate. Third stream agenda – single contact point for all SAGES members

• BGS – in discussion to become a member. Strong purpose to provide Earth surface ‘survey’ for societal use

• Heriot Watt University – opening discussions • Strathclyde University – early stages

Curiosity driven

IDEAS

Financial /status driven

Public Opinion

& “The

Media”

EU: DGs / H2020

SFC RCUK

Gov BIS DECC DEFRA DFID Scot Gov

HEIs Education Learned Societies

Regulation SG: SEPA, SNH, MSS

UK: EA, LAs EU: MSFD, OSPAR

Innovation: Centres of Expertise

Innovation Cs Entrepreneurs

Societal Challenges

Solutions

filter POOLING

filter

Control/regulate

Influence/ educate

POOLING

Navigating ‘innovation space’

Navigating crowded ‘innovation space’ • Key roles for T4: Society and Environmental Policy

• SAGES Innovation Manager post,

embedded within ECCI’s established reputation for working creatively in the interface between HEI-generated ideas and regulation, policy and commerce.

• SAGES Geoscience agenda – ‘senior’ members exert influence on strategic agenda setting – SAGES-branded ‘resources’ (briefing notes etc) needed.

EO Andy Kerr

Members benefits to date: take advantage of SAGES resources

INSTITUTE PEER/PECRE No of APPS

RESEARCH ENABLING

No of APPS PhD FUNDING No of

PhD's STAFF

MEMBERS PhD MEMBERS TOTAL MEMBERS TOTAL FUNDING

ABERDEEN 8339 2 1718 6 59375 2 22 2 24 69432

ABERTAY 18612 4 800 2 36000 1 10 1 11 55412

DUNDEE 4958 2 250 1 36000 1 14 6 20 41208

EDINBURGH 7752 4 4326 14 120707 4 59 8 67 132785

GLASGOW 26208 4 3307 10 72000 2 31 5 36 101515

SAMS 6250 2 1493 12 34000 1 13 3 16 41743

ST ANDREWS 21820 8 930 4 60000 5 26 4 30 82750

STIRLING 11554 4 1637 6 35625 1 14 6 20 48816

SUERC 12728 1 0 0 0 0 12 1 13 12728

UWS 2122 1 0 0 35355 1 5 2 7 37477

TOTALS £120,343.00 32 £14,461.00 55 £489,062.00 18 206 38 244 £623,866.00

This excludes initial staff and capital investments PEER and PECRE have high success rates

Thanks for listening Get involved, ask SAGES for support

SAGES Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment & Society

SAGES Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment & Society

SAGES Outcomes 2006-15 • Membership stands at 267 (Jan 2016), increasing year on year, all-

time high • Research income

• £28M of grant income generated by new staff • £79M of grant income generated by all SAGES members

• Research publications • >450 papers published by new staff • >3500 papers published by SAGES members

• Shared facilities and equipment – live inventory, at-cost access

• >50 graduate students • Contributions to policy and economic growth

SAGES+ 2015-2020 – HOW?

• Grow new partnerships in areas of strategic external interests – create a Forum.

• Funding for research proposal development distributed through

Themes. PEER plus additional discretionary seed-corn funding

• Grow of SAGES research base – BGS, Heriot Watt, Strathclyde

• Initiation of SAGES Knowledge ‘brokering’ function. ECCI associate partner, with shared SAGES/ECCI Development Manager post from May 2016

• Directory of SAGES expertise used by Director and DM to develop Innovation Agenda – biggest commitment of SAGES’ admin resource. The ‘third pillar’

• Internationalisation of SAGES brand, and specifically Grad School through partial fte Dept. Dir. and Grad. School Convenor