What a year…

This year in January, I became Co-Director of the Thriving Natural Capital Challenge Centre and Reader at SRUC, and blogged previously about that. 2022 has been an extremely busy and exciting time. I have now been Principle Investigator on 11 projects, successfully receiving almost £600k grants, including an award from Scottish government for Trustable Credit, a standards co-creation project for IoT devices measuring biodiversity, of national importance for digital measurement, verification and reporting of nature improvement.

I am Co-I on long-term projects: the RESAS 22-27 Strategic Research Programme on Natural Capital & on Horizon Europe’s Wet Horizons peatlands programme. The TNCCC has also researched and developed new farm soil, saltmarsh and lowland peatland codes and principles – we won funding of £1.1m for our institution for this work.

I was part of Dandelion, the £8.5m Scottish commission, a unique STEAM approach to community growing, ’21-‘22.  I ran the national schools’ science pilot project, I designed an app to help pupils gather data about the vertical farms we provided to 113 schools, from manual observations and automatically via data from IoT nodes we designed and deployed. Dandelion achieved fantastic impacts, reaching 600,000 people, of which we are very proud.

Also this year, achievements have included:

• Board Director to Highlands Rewilding Ltd., the mass-ownership nature recovery and community prosperity through rewilding company, June’ 22-.
• Technical Advisory Board Member of IUCN Peatland Code, Apr ’22-.
• Advisor to Scottish Carbon Fund, Apr. ’22-.
• Member of Scottish Government’s Programme for Investment in Natural Capital, Apr. ’22-,
• Interviewee for Bigger Picture SRUC Alumni event, Mar ’22, providing first principles content on natural capital.
• Member of EuropaBON (EU Biodiversity Observation Network), Mar ’22.

I have also co-authored these academic publications:

• Sep 2022           Reed, MSR. & Rudman, H., In: Sustainability Science. Re-thinking research impact: voice, context and power at the interface of science, policy and practice
• Aug 2022           Rudman, H, Hart, B., English, M. Turner, C, Fuentes-Montemayor, E. & Reed MS. In: Scottish Geographical Journal Traps, Apps and Maps: to what extent do they provide decision-grade data on biodiversity?
• Aug 2022           Reed, MSR & Rudman, H. Nov 2021 In: Mires & Peat. Peatland core common outcomes: building consensus on what should be measured in research and monitoring.
• Jul 2022             Black, HIJ., Reed, MSR., Kendall, H., Parkhurst, R., Rudman, H., Chapman, PJ., Ziv, G., Cannon, N., Yeluripati, J. B., Orman, M., Leeson, A. & Phelps, J., Jul 2022, In: Carbon Management. What makes an operational Farm Soil Carbon Code? Insights from a global comparison of existing soil carbon codes using a structured analytical framework.
• Jan 2022            Reed, M.S., Curtis, T., Gosal, A., Ziv, G., Pyndt Andersen, S., Attlee, A., Hay, M., Hill, D., Kendall, H., Martin-Ortega, J., Martino, S., Prior, S. Rodgers, C., Strange Olesen, A., Rudman, H., Tanneberger, F., Waylen, K. In PLoS ONE 17 (1). Integrating Ecosystem Markets to co-ordinate landscape-scale public benefits from nature.

As well as these policy reports:

• May 2022           McMorran, R., Reed, M.S., Glass, J., Bauer, A., Glendinning, J., Macaulay, B., McKee, A., Peskett, L. Rothenberg, L., Rudman, H., Williams, A. Large-scale land acquisition for carbon: opportunities and risks. A SEFARI Special Advisory Group Report.
• Mar 2022           Reed, MSR., Glass, J., Glendinning, JPG., McMorran, R., Peskett, L., Rudman, H., Stevens, DBS. & Williams, AW. Land Use Partnerships using a Natural Capital Approach: Lessons for Scotland, ClimateXChange.

I have presented these peer reviewed conference papers:

• Nov 2022           CIEEM Conference 2022. Traps Apps and Maps: Digital Data Collection Methods. Edinburgh.
• Aug 2022           RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2022. Natural Capital Session. Newcastle-upon-Tyne

And been invited to give these conference contributions:

• Apr 2022            ‘Traps Apps and Maps: digital devices to measure natural capital baseline data’, A3 (Animal Health, Aquaculture and Animal Health International Conference), Edinburgh 26^th Apr.
• Apr 2022            “Data Governance’. UK – New Zealand Agri-Tech Exchange Webinar Series from Department of International Trade, 26^th Apr.
• Mar 2022           ‘Traps Apps and Maps – a practical introduction to Natural Capital’. The Bigger Picture Introduction for SRUC Alumni, 23^rd Mar. On demand at https://youtu.be/Jci0rhRd6xQ
• Mar 2022           ‘Digital Technology Solutions for Future Farming’, ONE Agritech Workshop, Thirlestane, 8^th Mar.
• Feb 2022           “Dandelion & SRUC: an introduction”, LANTRA Conference, 24^th Feb.
• Feb 2022           ‘Tech Driven Disruptors Reshaping the Future of Food’, Can Do Innovation Summit, 23rd Feb.

What a year indeed!