The National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE) has established itself as an international centre of excellence, with a reputation for producing ground-breaking research. It was founded in October 2005, supported by a five-year multi-disciplinary grant from EPSRC, with nodes at the Universities of Cambridge, Kent and St Andrews. We now seek to build on this success by bringing together those active in developing statistical ecology methodology in the UK, to form a world-leading coordinated team. In this way, we can bring the best expertise to bear to solve key problems facing ecologists and wildlife resource managers, and maintain the UK's record of internationally-leading research in the field. We will build on the experience gained within NCSE for working effectively on joint projects within a geographically distributed Centre. This will involve regular meetings supplemented by video- and tele-conferences as well as video-seminars. Annual workshops will bring all members of the Centre together for research and learning. The planned research will span six broad themes, covering biodiversity monitoring, spatial and spatio-temporal models for ecological communities, stochastic models for population dynamics, movement models, and overarching new statistical methods and diagnostics. Current perspectives regarding loss of biodiversity are largely driven by results from the monitoring of specific sites, which typically are not representative. Further, it is usually assumed that individuals of all species are equally detectable, which is far from the case in most surveys. The research of one of the themes will develop indices for use in quantifying regional trends. In another theme, methods will be developed to describe the non-linear dynamics that are a feature of forest insects and zooplankton populations. Only recently have statistical methods been devised which take account of features such as animal movement and the interactions between different species; this is important for instance in determining the development of coral reefs. New methods developed by the grant investigators are allowing for greater complexity in stochastic models, which properly account for randomness. This is especially important when populations reduce in size. Common to the themes of the proposal is increasing realism in modelling, combined with the ability to match these developments with appropriate analytical, computational and inferential tools.The Centre will be run by an Executive Committee, chaired by the Director, which will meet regularly (usually by videoconference). The committee will select the Director annually from its members. An International Advisory Panel will provide the wider perspective. The new Centre will have post-doctoral research assistants at the Universities of Bath, Kent, Sheffield and St Andrews. In addition there will be annual appointments of cohorts of research students throughout the Centre, through which we will seek to maintain research activity in all six research themes. The Centre will link 8 university departments and 5 external agencies. We will endeavour to recruit and train the next generation of researchers in statistical ecology, foster the development of user-friendly computer software to ensure that the methods developed are readily available to the community, train scientists from the user community through a wide range of workshops, and provide a forum for our researchers to interact with the international community through the series of International Statistical Ecology Conferences, instigated in 2008 and organised by NCSE. The research of the Centre is timely and vitally important. It will ensure that national and international decisions regarding pressing contemporary issues, such as the effects of anthropogenic changes on the environment, as well as those of climate change and alternative energy generation, are made using the best possible science.

Bringing together world-class researchers from Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge and City Universities, this proposal seeks to transform the UK food system 'from the ground up' via an integrated programme of interdisciplinary research on healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people (H3). The H3 Consortium addresses the links between food production and consumption and takes a whole systems approach to identify workable paths towards a transformed UK food system, delivered via a series of interventions: on farm, in food manufacturing, distribution and retail, and in terms of the health implications and inequalities associated with food consumption in UK homes and communities. The proposed research addresses all of the UK government policy drivers outlined in the Call text from diet-related ill health to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, from biodiversity to soil health and water quality, rebuilding trust in the food system, promoting clean growth and supporting the translation of scientific research and new technologies for the benefit of the UK economy and society. Our approach is thoroughly interdisciplinary, combining world-class soil and plant scientists, health researchers, economists and social scientists The research team have many years' experience of working together, leading interdisciplinary research centres, co-supervising PhD students and collaborating on numerous research projects including the N8 agri-food programme. We take an integrated approach to the agri-food system, recognizing its inherent complexity and addressing the governance challenges that arise from the rapidly changing regulatory landscape. Our proposed research involves six interconnected work-packages. The first advances novel growing technologies via fundamental research into agricultural practices that have the potential to transform the quality of food we grow while minimising its environmental impact. The second aims to combine hydroponic and conventional soil-based agriculture, creating a linked network of hybrid demonstrator farms in peri-urban areas to encourage improvements in dietary health and environmental sustainability. The third extends these ideas to the landscape scale, evaluating the benefits of regenerative agriculture in terms of reduced fertiliser and pesticide use and increased food quality. The fourth addresses the key public health challenges of micro-nutrient deficiency through the application of state of the art methods of biofortification, enhancing the nutritional value of foods that are already part of established UK diets. The fifth seeks to increase the consumption of fibre with its attendant health and sustainability benefits, based on lessons learnt from the Danish wholegrain partnership; while the sixth seeks to increase food system resilience to economic, health and environmental shocks through collaborative research with retailers and consumers. Three cross-cutting themes (CCTs) provide further integration across the work-packages. The first focuses on the application of integrative methods such as LCA and scenario-building approaches to assess the environmental, social and economic impact of different interventions and policy options. The second focuses on issues of consumer demand, public acceptability and affordability; while the third ensures that stakeholder involvement features consistently throughout the programme, with a strong emphasis on knowledge exchange and impact within and beyond the five-year funding period. The H3 Consortium is led by Professors Peter Jackson and Duncan Cameron who co-direct the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield. They are joined by a core team, comprising the work-package and CCT leaders, a wider group of co-investigators and PDRAs, and an experienced business development manager, focused on maximising the impact of our research in government, business and civil society.

Accounting a climate footprint is an established practice. However, accounting for C capture is largely based on manual methodologies that cannot be easily scaled. The consortium has found a strong market need for a streamlined solution that can be scaled to meet the growing needs of C capture from Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF). AgriCapture seizes upon Earth Observation – free and open Copernicus data in particular – to deliver a highly innovative, flexible, and scalable solution for soil C capture projects/initiatives, targeting 1 of the 2 only potential mass C sinks through proven and increasingly popular practices (i.e. Reg Agri). AgriCapture will develop a systematic, robust and flexible platform for quantifying, verifying, and promoting soil C capture, allowing (i) farmers and other landowners to become “carbon farmers”, (ii) food companies to offset their carbon foot print and offer "zero carbon" products, and (iii) certifying organizations to scale up and automatize their processes. This will be accomplished through a co-creation approach with target users – agricooperatives, an agri-processor, a Reg Agri certifier, and an emission balance certifying organisation – within 5 diverse use cases located across Europe. To support uptake of project results, the project will establish a European Reg Agri Community, which will be used to raise awareness of Reg Agri as a high-potential approach to meeting climate pledges, to coordinate and empower farmers as agents of climate mitigation, and to inform product launch of AgriCapture through first-hand market information and a direct channel to potential customers. Finally, the project will also undertake dedicated activities to assess, identify and proactively pursue market opportunities, which will lead to several contracts for post-project service provision by the end of the project.

Conservation organisations are concerned with the protection of natural habitats and species, for their intrinsic value, the services they provide humanity and for their amenity value. Under international and local statutes, conservation organisations are obliged to prevent wild habitats from becoming degraded and halt or reverse the decline of species of conservation concern. This job is increasingly difficult given the extent of degradation and fragmentation of habitats and the threat of global changes, such as climate change. Until now, conservationists have been mainly concerned with habitats and species, and have neglected to consider a third strand of biodiversity called 'genetic diversity'. Genetic diversity can be found in all species. It is variation among individuals in DNA sequences that cause differences in their physical attributes, and is responsible for the familial resemblance among relatives. Genetic diversity is relevant to conservation in a number of ways. Firstly, many populations of endangered species are isolated and consist of small numbers of individuals. These populations often have little genetic variation, and this can hamper their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions through natural selection. Adaptation is key to success in conservation, because without it, species will be prone to extinction under environmental changes such as climate change. Secondly, small or isolated populations often consist of closely related individuals, and mating among these close-relatives can lead to inbred offspring that suffer immediate health problems. This can act as an additional burden on endangered species, making their populations more difficult to conserve. Thirdly, similar problems can occur due to inter-mating between very divergent populations. This may occur if human-aided movement of species brings previously separated populations into contact. Although these types of genetic problems are relatively well understood, there is no generic framework for assessing which species are at risk of which genetic problems, or decision-making tools to guide management actions. In addition, conservationists may be disinclined to incorporate these genetics problems into their action plans, because jargon and terminology in genetics can make the field inaccessible to conservationists without a genetics background. Our aim in this project is to enhance dialogue and the exchange of knowledge between researchers interested in genetic biodiversity, and wildlife conservationists. In doing this we will facilitate improved strategies to conserve species and enable the best use of genetic data in conservation programmes. Firstly we will develop a working group consisting of geneticists and conservationists to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, ensuring that geneticists are aware of the key conservation challenges, and conservationists are aware of when genetic information is likely to be useful. Secondly, we will evaluate previously published genetic information to fill gaps in understanding, and to determine when genetic problems are most likely. Thirdly we will develop a mechanism to assess the risk of genetic problems faced by any individual species, and link this to a framework recommending the best course to alleviate these problems. We will then test and refine this approach using species of conservation importance in the UK. Our fourth objective will provide standard protocols for choosing the sources of individuals for human-aided movement of plants or animals from one place to another. We will develop a system for recording the success and failure of these translocations to better inform future guidelines. Finally, our key goal is to make all of this information accessible. We will produce user-friendly handbooks aimed at explaining genetic issues in conservation, and will produce web-pages to assist conservation managers develop management strategies that incorporate genetic approaches.