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NERC-funded CASE Studentship available at the University of Bristol, beginning October 2010
website Bristol pollination PhD studentship 2010
ESRC prize for environmental change research in Kalahari and UK uplands
Mark Reed has been awarded the ESRC Michael Young Prize, “rewarding the very best early career social scientists whose research has the potential to make a positive and far-reaching impact beyond academia”. Mark won £3000 to help communicate his research to users outside of academia.
Dr Mark Reed's research looked into the impact of changing environments on the people that live and work in the UK uplands and Kalahari drylands. The finding of the research are important for semi-arid zones as land degradation and climate change are threatening future global food security, biodiversity and carbon stores. By focusing on anticipating, monitoring and adapting to future change in these different environments, the research can enable the residents to adapt effectively, to protect not only their livelihoods but also ecosystems that they often depend on.
New cross-Research Council award funds Exploratory Network in environment and behaviour research
A grant of £200K has been won under the cross-Research Council ‘Understanding Individual Behaviour – Exploratory Networks’ (UIBEN) programme. ‘Behaviour for Well-being, Environment & Life: BeWEL’ will operate for 12 months, commencing April 2009, with funding support from three Research Councils: the ESRC, MRC and BBSRC. The BeWEL proposal developed from the ideas of a core of University of Aberdeen (all three Colleges) and Macaulay Institute staff, but involves a total of 15 investigators, including members from the Universities of Gröningen, Kent, Leeds and Sheffield. BeWEL is designed to better understand how interactions with nature influence personal well-being, and key potential drivers of, and barriers to, pro-environment behavioural change. The Network brings together expertise in environmental sustainability and sustainable behaviours, environmental psychology, cognition and ageing, social network analysis, conservation biology and participatory conservation, e-Science, aural soundscape composition, and neuroscience and brain imaging.
BeWEL is led by Colin Hunter, with Jillian Anable and Mark Reed also from the School of Geosciences as co-investigators, and will bring a new Post-Doctoral Research Fellow appointment to the School. BeWEL activities include core Network meetings, pilot projects, the production of ‘state of understanding’ reports, and open workshop and lecture events. These activities will be supported by the use of a prototype web-based virtual research environment to aid communication and information exchange between Network members, and to facilitate external engagement and dissemination work. BeWEL will help shape future UK environment and behaviour research, with the preparation of further funding applications being a key expectation of Network members.
New research on the Economic Value of Dolphins (commissioned by the Moray Firth Partnership)
ACES members have won a contract from the Moray Firth Partnership to assess the tourism-related economic value of Bottlenose Dolphins in the Moray Firth/eastern Scotland area. The work is led by Ben Davies of the Business School and involves members of staff from all three Colleges of Aberdeen University, including Colin Hunter from Geography & Environment.
New EU FP7 grant won: Hunting for Sustainability
ACES members Simon Thirgood and Steve Redpath have recently won a major grant worth €3.7 million from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme. Working with collaborators in eight European and African countries, “HUNTing for Sustainability” will assess the social, cultural, economic and ecological functions and impacts of hunting across a range of contexts in Europe and Africa. We seek to understand what influences attitudes to hunting, how these attitudes influence and determine individual and societal behaviour in relation to hunting, and finally, how hunting behaviour influences biodiversity. Throughout we will use hunting as a “lens” through which to examine the wider issue of how people interact with biodiversity. The project results will be interpreted in respect to current and future EU policy on hunting and biodiversity conservation and contribute to the global debate about the sustainable use of biodiversity. HUNT is thus an extremely good fit to the ACES remit of providing the science base to underpin environmental sustainability. The project will start early in 2008 and we will provide regular updates on the ACES website.
Launch - 29th April 2008
ACES was officially launched on 29th April by Scotland's Minister for Environment, Michael Russell MSP, at King's College in Aberdeen. The launch event featured contributions from a range of academic leaders including Professor Richard Aspinall, Chief Executive of the Macaulay Institute, and Professor C Duncan Rice, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen. The event was chaired by Professor Maggie Gill, Chief Scientific Adviser for Rural Affairs and the Environment (RERAD).
Minister for Environment Michael Russell said: "I am delighted to launch the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES) which will position North East Scotland at the frontier of research on help protecting our planet for future generations to come.
"Scotland is renowned for its world-class science, and key to this new approach is bringing together leading experts from a range of different disciplines in environmental, social and economic science, to combine their skills and expertise.
"I hope this will help to tackle a variety of issues, from sustainable management of biodiversity to the impact of climate change, the single biggest environmental threat to our planet."
The event also featured short presentations on the link between land use and climate change from Professor Pete Smith, Professor of Soils and Global Change, University of Aberdeen; sustainability and interdisciplinarity from Professor Bill Slee, Socio-Economics Research Group, Macaulay Institute; evidence based policy research from Professor John Farrington, Director of the Institute for Transport and Rural Research, University of Aberdeen; environmentally sustainable approaches to cleaning contaminated land with Professor Ken Killham, Professor of Soil Science, University of Aberdeen; examining environments for life, with Professor Tim Ingold, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen; and ended with an introduction to a new project "Hunting for Sustainability" from Dr. Simon Thirgood.
New project works out how to get people working more effectively together to protect the environment