Tuesday 24th November 2020, 13:00 – 14:00 GMT
Presenter: Tom Oliver, University of Reading
Webinar Overview:
The need to take a whole-systems approach to policy to avoid unanticipated outcomes and burden shifting across sectors is now widely recognised. In this presentation I will introduce the Systems Research Programme established by the UK government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in March 2019, with the aim to better understand multiple outcomes of policy decisions and how suites of policies interact. The programme has six academic fellows reflecting policy areas of air quality, resources and waste, rural land use, marine and food. My role involves the advising on overall design, synthesis and coordination of the programme and working on crosscutting issues. I will discuss in particular our current work on some particularly wicked policy problems: net zero policy design and environmental target setting, and conclude by describing a forthcoming project with CECAN and several universities developing new protocols for the governance of systemic risk, including COVID-19 relevant case studies for biosecurity, respiratory health and food security.
Presenter Biography:
Tom Oliver is Professor of Applied Ecology at the University of Reading UK and leads their Ecology and Evolution research division. He sits on the European Environment Agency scientific committee and is a senior Fellow with Defra working to coordinate their Systems Research Programme. Tom’s primary research focuses on understanding the interacting impacts of drivers upon multiple environmental outcomes. A key aspect of this involves developing methods and tools to better quantify and communicate environmental risk to support environmental decision-making. Tom has published more than eighty scientific papers in world-leading interdisciplinary journals. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Independent and BBC Science Focus and he is author of the critically acclaimed book The Self Delusion: The Surprising Science of Our Connection to Each Other and the Natural World.
How to Join:
This talk will take place via a Zoom Webinar (registration now closed).
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. In case you are unable to attend, a recording of the webinar will be uploaded to our website following the event.
Link to Webinar Recording:
If you were unable to join the webinar, you can watch the session via our YouTube channel below. We are also pleased to be able to share a PDF version of the PowerPoint slides, please click here to view.
