As a publicly funded body, we have a responsibility not just to our staff, grant holders and partners, but to society. By acting with the highest standards across all our operations, we build on our public mandate to deliver excellent science.
We recognise and comply with all relevant legislation, including minimising environmental impact and promoting diversity and inclusion. We aim to go beyond what is required, abiding by:
- the UKRI guidelines on research integrity
- the UKRI open research policy
- the 2010 Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research
- the 2012 Concordat to Support Research Integrity
- the 2014 Concordat on Openness on Animal Research
- NERC policies including the environmental policy
The NERC responsible business statement sets out NERC’s approach and commitment to both sustainability and corporate responsibility, ensuring that through our business operations we have a positive contribution to society and the environment across all NERC investments.
We aspire to embed sustainability across our entire investment portfolio, from within our centres and how we operate our national capability to how we work with the universities and research institutions we fund. This is in line with the core values of our research community, who have a strong desire to ensure we deliver our world-leading environmental science in a world-leading way.
Our sustainability activities are broad-ranging but visualised under four pillars under which we prioritise our actions to make the most of opportunities to enhance our performance and to meet the needs of NERC and UKRI:
- responsible research
- environmental responsibility
- social responsibility
- responsible strategic decisions
NERC has actively engaged staff and the UK environmental science community to produce the NERC diversity and inclusion living action plan. Delivery of this plan will help us address underrepresentation and increase inclusion within NERC and across UK funded environmental sciences.
Annual report sustainability performance data is now captured in the UKRI annual report. Alongside our own framework development, NERC leads on the development of UKRI’s environmental sustainability strategy.
To find out more or to contact the NERC Sustainability Team, please contact:
Email: responsibility@nerc.ukri.org
Last updated: 12 September 2023