Edinburgh universities to delve into new research pool

The Scottish Funding Council has this week announced a £17.4 million contribution to the formation of a marine research pool, as part of a total investment of £74.7 million.

The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) will consist of ten Scottish universities, including Edinburgh Napier and Heriot-Watt, and will be chaired by Professor Ian Boyd of St Andrews University.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead explained: "As we move towards an era where renewable energy will be even more vital in our fight against climate change, our seas will only become more important."

The research pool will create eight professorships and 13 lectureships, and research will allow the universities' individual strengths to coalesce with a particular focus on nine themes: biodiversity, the coastal zone, marine predators, sustainable mariculture, genomics, fisheries, physical oceanography, modelling, and platforms and sensors.

The announcement of this research pool comes as the Times Higher Education Magazine has found that Scottish astronomers are pre-eminent in their field following an analysis of published scientific research, highlighting the success of another Scottish pooling arrangement, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA).

Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Napier will combine to provide 53 of the total 694 researchers involved. They will be joined by the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dundee, Stirling, and Strathclyde, and the research centres SAMS, UMBS Millport, and Fisheries Research Services.

While this research pool aims to place "Scotland as a world player in marine science through the delivery of science excellence in the field", it states that its mission "is to create international excellence in marine science for the benefit of the people of Scotland".

However, the core of the MASTS initiative will be a graduate academy, offering advanced postgraduate training in marine sciences to attract and retain talented young scientists.

Prof Boyd said: "The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland has been designed to provide a strong foundation for this basic research. My colleagues and I are excited by this new opportunity."