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Research on the distribution, abundance and sensitivity to disturbance of marine predators has been translated into environmental and economic benefits via a series of spin-out companies with a global presence. The research enabled the following impacts:
Direct company earnings were ~£6 million turnover in the assessment period and this supported 24 employees two-thirds of whom are skilled specialists.
The research resulted in primary legislation and provided government with the evidence used when implementing the measures set out within legislation. Specifically, this concerned:
This work, together with connected public outreach, was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2011 for excellence in research supporting better governance of the ocean.
Safeguarding our seas through the establishment of marine Special Protection Areas and cultural heritage Seascapes is a fundamental aim of European Union Directives and the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Over the past decade, sonar research development led by Dr Bates of the University of St Andrews has had widespread influence on international government and industry through accurate mapping of these assets, championing their importance and establishing new management strategies for their conservation. This work has been pivotal to the creation of 107 of the current legislated European Marine Special Areas of Conservation and Marine Special Protection Areas. The innovations in technology pioneered by this work also are providing critical findings on climate change impacts in the Earth's most sensitive and threatened environments with world media coverage on work in the Arctic including the award- winning TV series Operation Iceberg in 2012. Strong international media involvement has become one of the hallmarks of this work which simultaneously delivers research results as outputs of high quality across the globe. Furthermore, the technology has had economic impact in the form of three spin-out companies.
The International Centre for Island Technology (ICIT) based at Heriot-Watt University's Orkney campus is a multi-disciplinary research team whose focus for over a decade has been research into the socio-economic and environmental barriers to the development of marine renewable energy, particularly in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters (PFOW) area and its establishment as a Marine Energy park. This has enabled 1.2GW of marine energy leases by the Crown Estates including an estimated £3billion of related capital investment, as well as the establishment of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), which continues to maintain its impact on the development of marine renewable energy.
Research at the International Centre for Island Technology at Heriot-Watt University has led to a substantial boost to Orkney with £8.8m in Gross Value Added to the local economy, with the creation of 119 jobs (Biggar Economics, 2012) through a dozen spin-out companies.
Achievement of energy security and the UK's 2020 carbon targets economy depends upon a mix of new offshore oil and gas and renewable energy developments, but concern that seismic survey and construction noise could pose an unacceptable risk to marine mammals threatens to delay these plans.
University of Aberdeen ecologists, under the direction of Paul Thompson, have developed long-term studies of marine mammal population dynamics that now underpin frameworks for assessing and mitigating the impacts of such developments on marine mammals in EU protected areas.
The specific impact on commerce and the environment is that this assessment process has been adopted by industry within their consent applications. As a result of academic consultancy in industry, planning decisions have been informed by the research, and the management of environmental risks has changed. This has reduced the consenting risk for industry and provided an assessment framework that allows regulators to ensure that they are implementing current government policy within international legal frameworks for environmental protection.
The UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), led by the Institute of Zoology, first identified accidental entrapment in commercial fisheries (by-catch) as the cause of mass mortality of UK common dolphins. Those by-catch diagnostic criteria are still widely used (UK and overseas). CSIP cetacean mass stranding investigations led to a successful ban on naval exercises around the Canary Islands and modification of Royal Navy exercises to reduce harm to cetaceans. CSIP research on brominated flame retardants in porpoises led to an EU-wide ban; follow-up work during the REF period verified the success of the ban by demonstrating declining chemical concentrations.
The development and marketing of the Chemcatcher passive sampler has significantly improved the way water quality is monitored. These cost-effective devices are either used alongside or can replace established approaches that rely on infrequent spot or bottle sampling. We have contributed to the development of national and international standards for the use of passive samplers, and the dissemination of results to end users has facilitated the uptake of passive sampling technology worldwide. Our passive samplers have been used to monitor a diverse range of environmental problems, from pharmaceuticals in drinking water to the release of radioactive caesium after the Fukushima nuclear reactor incident in Japan.
Research by St Andrews scientists studying the effects of naval Sonar on marine mammals has had the following international impacts:
Research on the status, distribution and ecology of sea turtles at the University of Exeter has driven national and international conservation policy, engaged millions of people worldwide and raised substantial funding for conservation. Governments including the UK, Cayman Islands, Cyprus and Gabon have used this research in making legislation and multi-million pound management decisions. Development of open-access animal tracking tools has facilitated a global network of over 135 countries, with more than 300 projects tracking thousands of animals from 118 species. The ability to adopt tracked animals online has attracted millions of visitors and raised funding for conservation projects world-wide.
In 2012, cod stocks in the North Sea were assessed as having recovered almost to a level at which their viability is considered to be safe. This recovery followed 3 decades of progressive depletion to only 50% of the safety threshold of abundance. Achieving this recovery required the EU to abandon an earlier `closed area' policy banning fishing in selected areas of the North Sea, and instead enforce drastic cuts in overall activity on national fishing fleets. The policy change was prompted in part by predictions from mathematical modelling of cod populations by researchers at Strathclyde, showing that the `closed area' policy was unlikely to be an effective strategy for recovery. The recovery has so far restored £17 million in annual value to the fishery.