Professor Caroline Lear appointed to Natural Environment Research Council Science Committee

Our warmest congratulations to Professor Caroline Lear, Dean of Research and Innovation for the College of Physical Science and Engineering, on her successful appointment to the Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) Science Committee.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the driving force of investment in environmental science in the UK. Through investment of public money into world-leading science via infrastructure, research, and training, NERC is designed to help us to sustain and benefit from our natural resources, predicting and responding to natural hazards and environmental change. The Science Committee is the NERC’s main source of advice on scientific matters.

As a member of NERC’s Science Committee, Professor Lear will support excellence and sustainability within the UK science community, seizing opportunities to advance the frontiers of knowledge. Informed by NERC’s strategic priorities, she will commission and evaluate the performance of research and innovation, postgraduate training, partnerships, public engagement, and national capability.

NERC has five key themes at the heart of their five-year strategy:

• building a green future,

• securing a safe and resilient world,

• creating opportunities and improving community outcomes,

• achieving better health, ageing, and well-being for everyone

• tackling infection.

The Science Committee currently comprises 13 members from universities across the UK who bring broad strategic perspectives to achieving these goals.

Alongside her role as Dean of Research and Innovation for the College of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Professor Lear is also a professor of Past Climates and Earth System Change, an EDI Champion within the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, whose research interests include past climates, Earth system change, geochemical proxies, and Cenozoic palaeoceanography.