Natural England - Chief Scientist's Team
Chief Scientist's Team
The Chief Scientist’s Team helps to guide our work and the public debate on the natural environment. They ensure that our aims, strategies and delivery are underpinned by sound evidence and research programmes.
As knowledge specialists they are constantly generating and defining the needs for original thought - what we know, what we don’t know, what we need to know. They work towards raising scientific standards and ensuring our research programmes are appropriate to need. They do this by:
challenging our science and providing thought leadership for Natural England’s core aims (or “outcomes”)
quality assuring and ensuring fit-for-purpose research programmes to better support delivery
improving internal standards and quality of staff
The team works closely with our Executive Board and the Strategy and Environmental Futures Team to identify key issues of future influence on Natural England’s four organisational outcomes.
They engage in public debate and influence external partners on key issues through scientific papers, think-pieces and popular articles. They are also involved in workshops, national and international research and key initiatives such as the Environment Research Funders’ Forum and the Living With Environmental Change Programme.
A key focus for the team is to ensure:
Our strategy and policy are driven by sound analysis of the environmental future.
We are recognised as a scientific leader in key areas of our strategic agenda.
Our science and scientists are admired, respected and trusted.
We are a significant lever on the UK natural environment science programme.
Meet the team
Our team is made up of experienced scientists with expertise in different disciplines and we are aiming to recruit two more team members, one with expertise in terrestrial ecology and the other in the social sciences.
Dr Tom Tew, Chief Scientist
As Chief Scientist, Tom’s responsibilities include the provision of timely, accurate and well evidenced scientific advice to the Natural England Board. He also provides strategic leadership of science and scientists in Natural England and aims to increase the leverage and influence of Natural England across the science sector.
Tom researched farmland conservation for his PhD and post-doctoral studies. In his 15 years with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and English Nature, Tom delivered scientific, managerial and project roles in local, regional, national and international teams. Tom has a degree in Zoology from the University of East Anglia and a DPhil from Oxford.
Professor Dan Laffoley, Principal Specialist Marine Professor
Dan Laffoley is on 50 per cent secondment to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where he holds the prestigious position of Vice Chair for the World Commission on Protected Areas (Marine). Dan has previously served on secondment to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, and he has an Honorary Chair at Plymouth University. He is a council member of the Marine Biological Association and a member of the Science Advisory Committee for Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
Dan has been a driving force behind the recent Marine Climate Change Impact Partnership and Annual Report cards.
Dr Humphrey Crick, Principal Specialist Climate Change
Dr Humphrey Crick is one of the UK’s most respected ornithologists, and was previously with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) for 20 years. A population biologist by training, Humphrey led the Demography Unit at the BTO, where he was one of the first ecologists to notice changes in phenology as a result of climate change. He has co-authored two of the seminal climate change papers that were published in Nature in the late 1990s, and was one of the invited reviewers for the International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports.
Author of more than 100 papers, including 30 on climate change impact and adaptation, Humphrey is an honorary lecturer at University of East Anglia.
