The Financial Director David
Allen of BIS (Business Innovation and Skills government department) visited BGS last week, along with Graeme Reid who is responsible
for research in BIS; Graeme knows us well and thought we would be a good centre
for David to visit given our commercial focus. The aim was to show how a Research Council works and what our role is in translation of knowledge into useful information
for the private sector and the public.
David was extremely interested
by all that he discovered. The focus of the science discussion was on subjects
such as shale gas, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear waste disposal, but also on what we do with
groundwater and vulnerability to climate change and how we work overseas. He
was keen to discover how we work with universities and also with other
government agencies. He recognised the important role of BGS as an independent
voice on geological matters and asked some probing questions on how we manage
to remain independent while also advising industry consortia.
We visited the rock press where David managed to witness a rock failure under pressure and saw what he referred to
as the dating lab at NIGL (I think we must have used this expression) ; he
understood the importance of both of these facilities in understanding rock
behaviour but also in standardisation to underpin geology.
The visit to the National Geological Repository was especially useful as it happened to be full of consultants
working on shale gas cores to prepare the next licensing round. They were all
"typical geologists" and carrying hammers and lenses (not that I approve
of hammering cores), so he did see and observe the
stereotype, that I assured him we are changing.
This is from a slide that I presented to David Allen during his visit.
There may be a certain amount of chest banging, but BGS
outputs are excellent...
A world-leading Geological Survey
• 516 scientists; working with more than 40 Universities
and institutes
• More than 150 current private sector customers
• Around 20 bespoke science laboratories
• 5 NERC and national science facilities
• The
NationalGeoscienceDataBase and Repository
• 93% impact cases in NERC research
review recognised as excellent or outstanding
•
Internationally leading or better positions in 78% of research areas
• 75% 4 year increase in peer reviewed papers to 245 in
2012;
• >150 items of advice to policy makers in the UK, Europe, and
overseas in 2012
• > 300 000 web visits a month
In addition we have about 120 staff that support our
science in various ways, such as business development, IT, graphics, communications and administration.
Dave Allen was fascinated. BGS represents a mere £26
million of a more than £16 billion budget, but he saw the economic benefit in
spades!
