RISE up: we need more impact funding for regional environmental science

One of the most rewarding projects we have been involved in over the last year was telling the impact story of the ground-breaking environmental research and impact programme SWEEP.

Led by the University of Exeter from 2017 to 2023, the £5m South West Partnership for Environmental and Economic Prosperity, or SWEEP, set out to establish the South West of England as an exemplar for environment-led economic growth. It also benefitted from more than £7m in funding from external partners.

SWEEP used multi-disciplinary research, expertise and evidence to deliver economic and community benefits to South West England, and, at the same time, protect and enhance the region’s natural environment.

Headline impacts included:

•       £35m benefit to the UK economy;

•       38 policies, legislation and regulations informed or influenced;

•       327 full-time jobs supported by leveraged funding;

•       159 tools and services created;

•       84km2 of wildflower and pollinator habitat created;

•       World’s first Marine Natural Capital Plan for the North Devon Biosphere Reserve;

•       Contribution to government decision to allow England’s first wild breeding population of beavers for 400 years.

The case study of how we worked alongside the SWEEP team and designers Boyle and Perks to create the Story of SWEEP is under our Outcomes page. But the point I want to make here is: we need more funding calls like the Natural Environment Research Council’s Regional Impact from Science of the Environment (RISE) programme.

The aim of RISE was to ‘bring research organisations together with businesses, policy bodies and other actors contributing to economic development specific to their location, to deliver significant regional impact from NERC environmental science’. 

The duration (five years) and the scale and flexibility of the funding allowed the SWEEP team to pursue an ambitious ‘whole systems’ approach. The idea at its heart was to transform a culture of decision-making that has too often focused on improving one area of the economy or environment, only to result in unintended negative consequences for others. SWEEP was a response to the need to work collaboratively at larger spatial scales, combining landscapes, river catchments, coastal zones and seascapes.

Key to this approach were new ways of partnership working that traversed conventional boundaries, disciplines and sectors. The nature of the funding facilitated the interplay between 1) External partners; 2) Impact fellows (academic); 3) Impact specialists (non-academic); and 4) Senior academic leaders.

Projects were co-designed with regional businesses, policymakers and civil society organisations. Impact fellows were hybrid research roles designed to translate applied science into environmental, economic and social benefits. Addressing an all-too-common gap, impact specialists were embedded in project teams to help optimise impact planning, project management, relationship building, communications and evaluation. And senior researchers from diverse and interdisciplinary backgrounds provided academic leadership.

RISE funding was not limited to SWEEP. Investing a total of £17m, it also funded projects like the Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme, which set out to establish Yorkshire as a global leader in implementing resilient catchment management and influence £1bn of investment by 2030. Having begun in 2017, this work is continuing.

At a time when public awareness of the impact of air, water and land pollution on local communities is increasing rapidly, it seems to me that government-backed funding programmes like RISE are needed now more than ever.