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NHM Science Strategy - All
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The UK National Ecosystem Assessment was published in 2011 and now a Follow-on report has been produced. The main emphasis is on tools to aid decision makers in developing policy tools and strategy: natural capital; an updated land use change model that included biodiversity; valuation of cultural ecosystem services; forward scenarios; embedding knowledge for policy; and adaptive management principles.
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The UK House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has reported on its inquiry on Food Security. The Inquiry makes a range of recommendations relating to better planning for crises as a result of weather or other events; planning for increasing global food demand; climate change impacts; organic food; genetically modified crops and other issues. The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is seen as having a key role.
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FAO has published State of the World's Forests 2014 with a particular emphasis on socioeconomic issues - sustainable development, forest economy, ecosystem services and so on.
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The Geological Society of London has produced Geology for Society, an advocacy report on geology covering: economy, energy, water, food, ecosystem services and environmental change. Reference to geology in education, but not to public engagement and cultural value.
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A new global biosphere model has been produced as a result of collaboration between UNEP-funded scientists and Microsoft - the Madingley model - http://www.madingleymodel.org/index.html
Harfoot MBJ, Newbold T, Tittensor DP, Emmott S, Hutton J, et al. (2014) Emergent Global Patterns of Ecosystem Structure and Function from a Mechanistic General Ecosystem Model. PLoS Biol 12(4): e1001841. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001841
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The UK parliament's House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has launched a new inquiry into Defra's draft National Pollinators Strategy - which in turn has arisen from a range of policy developments and discussions in recent years. Deadline for evidence 4 June.
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The UK House of Commons Science and Technology committee has published a report on its inquiry into Government Horizon Scanning.
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The UK government has responded to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry on Women in Scientific Careers. The government response highlights various initiatives - the recent Call to Action; the Equality Challenge Unit; Athena Swan and a range of others. Much of the response points to these,
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The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has initiated an independent review of the use of metrics in research assessment with an emphasis on four areas of interest:
a. Identifying useful metrics for research assessment.
b. How should metrics be used in research assessment?
c. ‘Gaming’ and strategic use of metrics.
d. International perspectiveDeadline for submissions 30 June 2014.
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The 2012 San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DoRA) represents a commitment by individual scientists, funders and institutions to adopt a sophisticated approach to the assessment of research quality, including avoiding the use of Journal Impact Factors. It states that decision-makers should "For the purposes of research assessment, consider the value and impact of all research outputs (including datasets and software) in addition to research publications, and consider a broad range of impact measures includin