The Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources programme is a £12.4 million initiative set to deliver research in support of UK marine environmental policy across five years. The research programme will support six projects covering a range of initiatives that seek to achieve the programme’s core themes. Proposals can bid for up to £1.5 million for 36 months and must address at least two of the programme’s three themes.
The overarching objective of the SMMR programme is to improve sustainable societal, behavioural and economic benefits through better management of UK marine resources and integrate this into systems-based approaches that support the development and analysis of interventions and inform effective decision-making for marine management and policy. At the same time, the programme will achieve an enduring step change in the capability of the marine interdisciplinary research community working on marine issues and its close working on solutions with stakeholders, including policy makers, industry, and the public.
Delivery of the programme’s objective will be strongly dependent on developing interdisciplinary capability (across environmental, social and economic sciences) and stakeholder engagement. Projects will be required to solely focus on the UK’s marine environment, to take advantage of the opportunity to build on a strong portfolio of related research (e.g. NERC, Defra, Marine Scotland).
The programme’s three Themes are:
Theme 1: Understanding the different value systems people hold when they connect with the marine environment and how this affects their decision making, in order to inform and direct policy development.
Theme 2: Development and integration of modelling tools to support coastal and marine natural capital approaches and accounting.
Theme 3: Development of interventions that support government policy to improve the marine environment for the next generation.
This programme will:
• Deliver approaches and tools on interventions and management scenarios for improved environmental, social and economic outcomes focussing on public goods and net gain.
• Make recommendations on future policy concerning interventions to improve the marine environment and achieve net gain.
• Utilise social, economic and environmental metrics and model tools to enable evaluation of interventions.
For more information please check out the SMMR’s website or contact the SMMR Champions, Professor David Paterson and Dr Mark James at smmruk@st-andrews.ac.uk.
