NERC Holyrood Reception Briefing

Impact: Public policy Impacts

Describe the impacts resulting from your research

The NERC reception aims to showcase NERC brand messages to Scottish parliamentary audiences and NERC advocates through a celebration of NERC science and people with a Scottish connection.

The reception objectives are to:
• Showcase NERC brand and messages to Scottish parliamentary audiences and NERC advocates through a celebration of NERC science and people with a Scottish connection, in support of our broader external affairs aims.
• Demonstrate how NERC:
o Helps find solutions to the problems facing people, society and the economy;
o Works with Scottish parliament and policy-makers to ensure our evidence informs policy;
o Engages the UK public with environmental science evidence.
• Raise awareness, support and enthusiasm for NERC UnEarthed showcase with attendees through an element of fun!
• Build closer relationships with a community of NERC advocates in Scotland from research, partner and parliamentary stakeholder groups.

We will be bringing NERC research, researchers and partners into the Scottish Parliament to demonstrate how NERC helps find solutions to the problems facing people, society and the economy. Our themes for the reception focus on solutions such as improving air quality, safeguarding natural resources and increasing resilience of UK infrastructure. We want to demonstrate how we are working: with a parliamentary audience to ensure knowledge on current topics is at their fingertips; with industry and policy to innovate and provide solutions and; with the public to engage them in our work.
Our sponsor for this event is Graeme Dey MSP. Graeme Dey is a Scottish National Party politician for Angus South constituency. He was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2011. He is a member of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, taking high interest in Environment, Land Reform, Water quality, Climate change, National parks, Crown estate and Marine planning.

Our vision for the look and feel of the event is to have four themed areas (energy infrastructure, natural resources, international policy, air quality) for which we have invited 4-5 ‘case people’ to bring to life NERC’s contribution. The focus will be on 1:1 conversations between attendees and creating as many conversations as possible where partners and researchers advocate for NERC (alongside their own messages) to our parliamentarian ‘audience’ for this event. We have not produced briefings for our audience, instead our focus is on face to face conversations between attendees and advocacy instead.

Who or what is affected by your research?

Our Parliamentary Audience

Our primary audiences for this event are the Scottish parliamentarians and high-level government officials attending. A full attendee list (current on 01/11) is included in the annexes, and background on some key members of the ‘audience’ that may be of interest to you are also included to help you select who you may wish to speak to on the evening, and what about.
Graeme Dey’s office have invited all Members of Scottish Parliament, and we fully expect them to filter in and out of the room as they please. We have received personal acceptances from four MSPs and five managers/leads within Scottish Government although from experience, we are likely to get more MSP ‘passing traffic’ on the night as they visit several of the events being held that evening.

How did your research contribute or influence these changes?

Speeches

The panel of speakers will be giving their views on “Environmental science evidence and public policy”, highlighting the relevance of science to inform key policy and public debates.
The panel will be led by our event sponsor Graeme Dey MSP, and consists of: Graeme Dey MSP, Helen Bonsor (NERC KE Fellow), Lesley Yellowlees (NERC Council) and Sir Anthony Cleaver (NERC Chair).
Impact statusCompleted
Impact date7 Nov 2017
Category of impactPublic policy Impacts
Impact levelEngagement