WSKEP news

For the UK as a whole, temperature and rainfall for December were near-average, but there were marked spatial contrasts and a wide range of weather conditions throughout the month. Westerly airflows brought strong winds and some heavy rain and snowfalls, resulting in a wet December for the north-west, while in southern and eastern areas it was generally dry and sunshine was well-above average. With mild airflows from the Atlantic, temperatures were often high for the time of year, but there were cold spells early in the month and during an anticyclonic episode in the last week, which brought the lowest minimum daily temperatures for 2014.

The Hydrological Summary is available here.

The Water Innovation Network are looking for solutions that will have a positive impact on Anglian Water's business from water treatment and distribution solutions through to innovations that improve customer service. We also have a list of challenges, accessible here, to which we are seeking solutions.

It is free to submit a solution and it is open to any organisation, academic institution or individual based in the UK or overseas.

Simply download and complete the submission form before emailing it to submissions@waterinnovation.net by midday on Friday 23rd January for consideration at the WIN Steering Group meeting. The form is easy to complete and once submitted you can be certain that your idea will be considered by the right people in Anglian Water and then subsequently its progress will be monitored by the network to ensure that you receive a response with constructive feedback.

The January 2015 Hydrological Outlook has now been published.

There is currently no strong indication of river flows or groundwater levels being substantially above- or below-normal in early 2015. For both the one and three month outlook, the most likely outcome is for normal river flows and groundwater levels to dominate across the UK. Above-normal flows and levels are likely in some localised areas, but there is no strong indication of these conditions being widespread; meteorological forecasts slightly favour above- rather than below-average rainfall over the next three months, but there is a wide range of uncertainty in these projections.

The full summary can be found here and you can register here to receive email notification of when the Outlook is published. 

The Prime Minister's Council for Science & Technology (CST) has announced a new project which aims to build a picture of the whole UK research landscape and develop a stronger evidence base. This evidence base will be available to inform future strategic decision making and help the UK maintain and develop its excellence in research.

CST wants to better understand how the UK's research community defines itself, and the links and interconnections that exist between research disciplines. To do this they have developed the UK Knowledge Landscape Tool, which is designed to gather data from researchers on the disciplines, dependencies and key infrastructure they think make up modern research.

CST is interested in crowd sourcing a large amount of data which will be analysed for statistically significant patterns across the whole body of responses, then used to produce outputs such as taxonomies or maps. The more responses the tool has the better the mapping will be, and NERC encourages its academic community to input as widely as possible.

To take part in this exciting and experimental project, please create an account on the UK Knowledge Landscape website.

A new and updated version of the Coded List of Freshwater Algae of Britain and Ireland has been published on the CEH website.

The list includes all reliable records up to November 2014 of freshwater and terrestrial cyanobacteria and photosynthetic algae in the British Isles with the exception of diatoms, for which there is only a partial list. Brackish water and intertidal cyanobacteria are also included, because a few species have been recorded from both freshwater and marine environments.

The list is the fifth update of one prepared originally for the then Water Data Unit of the (UK) Department of the Environment in 1978.

For further information visit the CEH website.

Innovate UK, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are to invest up to £7.5m in collaborative R&D projects, with a proportion available for feasibility studies. Proposals must be collaborative and business-led.

We are seeking proposals for innovative, commercial solutions to increase the resilience, quality of life or economic performance of urban areas by integrating environmental, social and/or economic data with data from other sources. The focus is on better defining and solving problems through new ways of combining data.

Up to £2m is available from NERC for projects which use environmental data.

More information on the call can be found here.

November was a damp and dull month, the dullest November since 2004 for the UK. Temperatures were mild for the time of year, particularly during the first half of the month, contributing to mean January-November temperatures that rank 2014 as the warmest on record for the Central England Temperature series back to 1659.

The Hydrological Summary is available here.

The December 2014 Hydrological Outlook has now been published.

The one month outlook for December is for both river flows and groundwater levels to be within the normal range for most of the UK apart from lowland England, where river flows are likely to be above normal. The three month outlook suggests a similar pattern, but with an increased likelihood of above normal groundwater levels in the Permo-Triassic sandstones of north-west England.

The full summary can be found here and to access further information you can register here.

There is rising concern about the need to protect water quality at source, rather than relying on heavy inputs of energy and chemicals downstream for cleaning up abstracted supplies. This, together with a greater emphasis on the value of “natural capital”, calls for more systemic management of land and water, including natural solutions involving wetlands at the land/water interface. Water companies, regulators and landowners are all showing increasing interest in exploring the opportunities offered by wetlands to deliver benefits using Payment for Ecosystem Services and other novel solutions.

The latest policy and practice note on Wetlands as a systemic solution is now available on line on the LWEC website 

The Innovation Projects call supports projects that are likely to generate little or no commercial return, but which will deliver impact.

The call aims to increase and accelerate the uptake and impact of NERC funded research output by supporting translational and knowledge exchange activity which delivers direct tangible and demonstrable benefits to end users. The Follow-on Fund is for those projects that aim to be fully commercialised with a revenue stream derived from licensing, spinouts, consultancy etc.

A maximum of £125k (£100k at 80% FEC) may be requested. Projects are expected to start in May 2015 and to last for up to 12 months. Smaller, targeted activities of three to six months are also welcome and NERC anticipates seeing a range of requests within the £125k limit, reflecting a diverse range of potential projects and activities.

The closing date is 16.00 hrs on 18th December, 2014

For further information go to the NERC website.

NERC has revealed the first tranche of highlight topics that will tackle some of the biggest environmental challenges facing us today.

NERC's Strategic Programme Advisory Group (SPAG) carefully considered 150 ideas submitted by the environmental science community during summer 2014 and developed several areas of research, called highlight topics. After reviewing the topics, NERC's Science & Innovation Strategy Board (SISB) has decided to pursue five:

• Understanding and predicting anomalous trends in surface temperature and implications for long-term climate response.
• Environmental pathways and impacts of nanomaterials.
• Dynamics of freshwater ecosystems within an integrated landscape system.
• Integrated dynamics of natural capital systems: bringing the natural environment into economic decision making.
• eDNA, a key new tool for 21st century ecology.

These highlight topics will make sure NERC is funding research to tackle the societal challenges identified in its ambitious strategy 'The Business of the Environment'.

Visit the NERC website for further information >>

Innovation vouchers are open to all kinds of smaller businesses from 10 November 2014. You can claim up to £5,000 towards the cost of expert advice if you are running an SME – or just starting up.

The funding encourages you to seek out fresh knowledge that can help your business to grow and develop.

That could include advice on an innovative idea, learning more about using design within your business or how you should make the most of intellectual property.

The first round of applications for Innovation vouchers under the new rules is now open.

This pilot round of the NERC Follow-on Fund has increased the previous maximum amount that could be applied for (£125k) to up to £250k (£200k at 80% FEC). As part of the pilot, NERC has also introduced more flexible time scales, ie funding for projects lasting between 3 and 24 months. These changes have been introduced to provide projects with the very best opportunity for commercial exploitation.

There is also an optional Pathfinder grant available to strengthen your market knowledge and make your Follow-on Fund application more persuasive for the Panel.

The Pilot Follow-on Fund closing date is 16.00 hrs on 18th December 2014 and Panel interviews with applicants will be held in London on 26 February 2015.

For further information visit the NERC website.

Innovate UK, ESRC and NERC are to invest up to £7.5m in collaborative R&D projects (with a proportion available for relevant feasibility studies) to develop new solutions to urban challenges through their competition 'Solving Urban Challenges with Data'. 

Projects should seek to create solutions and services that offer specific commercial benefits and/or limit risks and increase the resilience, quality of life or economic performance of urban areas by integrating environmental, social and/or economic data with data from other sources. The focus is on better defining and solving problems through finding innovative ways to combine data sources. 

The briefing events will include;

• an opportunity to hear about the scope of the competition in more detail
• an overview of some of the datasets available
• an opportunity to network and develop partnerships for the competition

Register here for one of six events hosted around the UK.

The Future and Emerging technologies Programme with H2020 is a entirely new programme seeking to promote transformational technologies, methods and concepts that will potentially result in entirely new industrial sectors. There are two components to the 2015 FET programme.

1. The first has a very substantial budget of €154 million – with the Commission anticipating it will fund between 50-70 projects each with budgets in the order of € 2-3 million. Further information is available here.

2. The second is a relatively small supporting programme of Coordination and Support Actions (total budget only €3.0 million to support 6-10 actions that will either lay the foundations for future FET projects (FET Exchange), or will facilitate exploitation of previous projects (FET take-Up).

There will be rolling closing dates every six months throughout H2020, with the first Closing Date on 31st March 2015.

The conference addresses issues related to future tensions on water management, linked to climate change and future water uses by 2050. These issues are tackled by studies in the fields of hydrology, climate, social sciences, at various scales in Europe and the Mediterranean.
The following topics are addressed:
1. Past and present “crises” and water tensions
2. Future water regimes by 2050
3. Methods for prospective studies

Gathering these topics in a single event aims to initiate a multidisciplinary exchange between hydrological, climatic analyses, social and economic approaches and studies on the dynamics of water crises. Social sciences analyses of past and present water crises are expected to improve the management of future water crises.

Abstract submission: January 10th, 2015

More information can be found here.

The Smart Water Network (SWAN) launches a new online platform for anyone interested in learning more about smart water technologies. Search for specific solutions, map existing technologies to particular network challenges, and view interactive architecture maps, benefit analyses and case studies.

See a quick overview of the tool here.

Access the tool here. 

NERC, in partnership with the Future Cities Catapult (the FC Catapult), is seeking to invest in an early to mid-career academic with expertise in environmental data to explore the application of environmental datasets to innovative products, processes and services that improve the planning and management of city systems. This KE Fellowship opportunity will focus on translating environmental datasets within the NERC remit to a range of users associated with the FC Catapult’s work on urban innovation.

The FC Catapult is a global centre of excellence on urban innovation with a remit “to assist UK businesses create the products and services that cities across the world need if they are to have a strong economy, a resilient environment and an improved quality of life”. The FC Catapult is developing the Cities-Lab as a unique facility to harness big data and to test and validate solutions at city-scale. NERC and the FC Catapult are collaborating by jointly investing in this KE Fellowship to increase uptake and application of NERC environmental datasets and related research. The successful Fellow will add significant value by increasing the uptake of NERC environmental data in a way that enables development of innovative new products, processes and services that address the challenges and opportunities of the world’s cities.

The call closes at 16.00 on 29th October 2014. Further information can be found here 

or on the Future Cities Catapult website here

EPSRC are opening a Water, Energy and Food nexus Sandpit call.

This Sandpit is being led by EPSRC with the support of three RCUK cross-council programmes: Living with Environmental Change, The Energy Programme and the Global Food Security Programme; and the UK cross-government /industry UK Water Research Innovation Partnership (UKWRIP). It is hoped that the sandpit will enable UK researchers to perform research on the water energy food nexus, potentially using revolutionary approaches to challenges in this area.

It is expected that £ 4-5million of funding will be made available to fund research projects arising from the sandpit.

The closing date for the call is the 4^th November. Information can be found here