The Landscape Decisions Programme Coordination Team (PCT), and UK Research & Innovation (Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)) are pleased to welcome seven new Fellows from across England, Wales and Scotland to the programme.
The programme is developing a community of researchers and stakeholders with interests in improving the processes of landscape decision making in order to deliver environmental, economic and societal benefits across the UK. The Fellows will work with the PCT in collaboration with other projects funded within and beyond the programme. The Fellows will be conducting projects on multidisciplinary landscape research synthesis, translation of research outcomes into policy-relevant applications and on community engagement with landscape decision-making
Professor Heiko Balzter, who is leading the Programme Coordination Team, said:
“The Landscape Decisions Fellows have a critically important role in the programme. They provide connections between funded projects, contribute to synthesising the research outcomes and undertake their own individual research. There was high competition for the fellowships and I am pleased to say that we appointed excellent candidates at all levels of their professional careers.”
The seven Fellows and their projects are:
Dr Janet Fisher, University of Edinburgh: Developing a Toolkit for Mapping and Deliberating Values for Uplands Management (MADEVU).
Dr Fisher said:
“I’m delighted to have been awarded this landscape decisions fellowship as it will enable me to pioneer new understanding and ways of working with stakeholders towards the potential amelioration of upland conflicts’. ‘I’m really excited about the interdisciplinary basis of the landscape decisions programme. With multiple new and escalating physical, social and policy drivers of change in the UK landscape, it is an important chance to improve the governance of land.’
Dr Adam Calo, The James Hutton Institute: The role of property, ownership and land tenure on landscape decision making: The case of Scotland’s ‘low carbon farming’ policies.
Dr Calo said:
“I’m delighted to join Landscape Decisions Programme as a Fellow. The concerted effort to join up the social and biophysical sciences along with the arts and humanities demonstrates the type of consortium required to meet grand environmental challenges at a systems level. I look forward to stimulating thinking on how norms of property, land tenure and land access restrain or enable the ability for land managers to take on climate positive decisions in the agricultural sector, and I hope to make a timely contribution though the Landscape Decisions Programme.”
Dr Christopher Lee, University of Exeter: Co-desIgning Robust natural Capital LandscapEs (CIRCLE).
Dr Lee said:
“I’m delighted to have been awarded a Landscape Decisions Fellowship, and I’m excited to begin translating the expertise of the Landscape Decisions Programme into the policy design process, and ultimately environmental benefits to society. Working at the heart of government policy development will give me, and colleagues in the Landscape Decisions Programme, the opportunity to better support decision makers, and to improve the use of our work in the policy design process in future.
Dr Jonathan Walker, Swansea University: Supporting the development of peatland policy, strategy and practice, and its delivery, in Wales (Welsh Peatlands Evidence).
Dr Walker said:
“I’m thrilled about my Landscape Decisions Fellowship! The Landscape Decisions programme is so relevant and timely given these times of significant change our landscapes are in – changes in priority outcomes, management methods and financing. It’s so important that at this juncture, the decisions we take for our landscapes and us are informed by up to date, robust evidence. “
Dr Leo Peskett, University of Edinburgh: Bridging the national and local in landscape decision making: building effective regional partnerships that deliver on climate policy objectives.
Dr Peskett said:
“The Fellowship is a really exciting opportunity for me to work directly with the end users of landscapes decisions research, finding ways to creatively and effectively incorporate research into the establishment of pioneering new landscape decisions institutions. Landscape planning and management is crying out for frameworks that can help make sense of the hugely complex area of landscape decision making. The Landscape Decisions Programme, with its breadth, depth and cross-disciplinary approach, can make a hugely valuable contribution in this area and help to deliver more sustainable landscapes”
Dr David Baker, University of Exeter: Co-production of a software tool for field-scale species distribution modelling (fs-SDM) and mapping using local biodiversity records.
Dr Baker said:
“The Landscape Decisions Programme has the potential to transform the way in which multifunctional landscapes are managed for both people and nature. Support for this type of applied research is not widely available and consequently the award of this fellowship within the Landscape Decisions Programme is exciting for all involved. The complex problems of designing and managing multi-functional landscape necessitates working within multi-disciplinary teams and I am looking forward to working within the Landscape Decisions community to develop novel insights into my own work and to foster future cross-disciplinary collaborations“.
Dr Emma Gardner, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology: How many trees should we plant and where? Modelling the landscape-level benefits and biodiversity consequences of woodland creation.
Dr Gardner said:
“The Landscape Decisions Programme has created such a fantastic multidisciplinary community, where everyone’s knowledge and experience is welcomed and valued. As an Early Career Researcher, being part of this culture of state-of-the-art knowledge exchange is both invaluable and inspiring. This Fellowship has given me a unique opportunity: it allows me to work alongside stakeholders and use my multidisciplinary background to really understand the complexities of a topic that is not only highly policy relevant, but can also have big potential consequences for us all.”
For further information contact the PCT at landscapes@leicester.ac.uk