NERC Environmental Data Centres do they meet your needs?

The Earth is relentlessly changing. Tracing and understanding past environmental change plays an important role in the prediction of future environmental change. The data held by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) consists of historical records accumulated over decades that provide a valuable resource to support research, survey and monitoring activities and for users in academia, government, the public sector, industry and commerce. The NERC data centres (www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/) are responsible for the long-term management of data and provide access to NERC’s data holdings. They also provide support and guidance in data management to NERC funded researchers.

The NERC has recently launched a new Science Information Strategy (www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/sis.asp). It has been created to provide the framework for NERC to work more closely and effectively with the scientific communities, both internal and external, in delivering data and information management services to support its five year science strategy, the Next Generation for Planet Earth (www.nerc.ac.uk/about/strategy/ngscience.asp).

A key part of working more closely and effectively with the scientific community is understanding the requirements and expectations of existing users, as well any barriers or obstacles that can prevent other people from becoming users. To this end NERC will be seeking the views of the wider community to discover if the activities of the NERC data centres are meeting their needs.

The views of existing and potential users are extremely valuable and we would ask that you take a 10 to 15 minutes to take part in the consultation. The result of the initial consultation will provide valuable information to help us plan for future developments and will be the foundation for further dialogue. The initial consultation is via means of an online questionnaire which will be available between the 15th October and the 19th November 2010. It can be found at:

www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/consultation

During the initial online questionnaire you will be asked to indicate if you would be willing to take part in a subsequent phone interviews, this is entirely voluntary.

The results of the study will be made available through the NERC website early 2011.

Mark Thorley and Jeremy Giles

Natural Environment Research Council

BADC Helpdesk 6th October 2010