Photocredit: Defra.
On Friday 27 June 2014, the Nexus Network and Defra jointly hosted a workshop ‘Joining-up across natural resource and social sustainability issues‘. The workshop brought together around 100 people from policy and research organisations, including Defra, the Natural Capital Committee, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, JNCC, Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission.
Setting the scene, Dr Ulrike Hotopp, Defra Director, Analysis and Chief Economist stressed the need to work in partnership as highlighted in Defra’s recent evidence strategy.
This was the first opportunity for many participants to hear about the Nexus Network from Network Director, Professor James Wilsdon, and from Network co-investigator, Professor Ian Bateman. James outlined the background to Nexus thinking, the vision of the Network, plus some of the highlights of the Nexus activities to date, including the series of blogs on the Guardian website. Ian talked about the current call for think pieces; the upcoming Annual conference on 27 November 2014 and the first of the two planned workshops.
Dr Diana Mortimer from the JNCC, then explained how the Nexus can link with existing frameworks through the Living With Environmental Change partnership, including potential links with European and international programmes.
Introducing the health dimension, Professor Mike Depledge from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health spoke about their research on the direct and indirect links between a healthy environment and human physical and mental health. Concluding the morning’s talks was Professor Mark Reed who spoke about his work for the National Ecosystem Assessment on cultural ecosystem services and shared values.
So plenty of food for thought in the morning session which stirred up lively discussions over lunch. This energy was harnessed in the afternoon session, where each table was asked to identify key cross-cutting themes for the Nexus Network and to suggest the research needed to address these.
We hope to bring you more on this shortly.
Download the Nexus Network talk as a pdf (1935kb) 140627_NexusNetwork_talk_JW_IJB
