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Knill: Earth scientists should consult public. Credit: REX FEATURES

More of Britain's publicly funded Earth sciences research should be relevant to the needs of people and policy-makers, according to a former leader of the country's natural environment research body.

Sir John Knill, who used to head the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), told the annual meeting of the Geological Society last week that informal research showed the public had a high level of interest in the applied Earth sciences, such as climate change and natural hazards.

But whereas such topics are a high priority in NERC's directed research programmes, data on ‘responsive mode’ funding show that Earth scientists are more interested in more specialized fields. “There is a mismatch here,” he said. “We need to convince ourselves that public opinion matters.”

In a keynote lecture, ‘How we need to convince society that it needs geological research’, Knill told his audience that by paying less attention to public interests, Earth scientists had lowered their stock in the eyes of policy-makers. He revealed that the Geological Society is one of the few learned bodies not being consulted in the second round of the government's Technology Foresight programme.

Knill said that if Earth scientists want to be heard in government, they need also to lobby civil servants. “What a minister writes or says is usually written by other people. We need to influence those ‘other people’.”