The draft information and analysis paper was amended as per the discussion at the last Commission
meeting. This was then used as a basis of a consultation along with a series of consultation questions.
At the end of October the consultation was sent to approximately 150 people inviting responses with a
deadline of 15 December. Responses will be collated and analysed and used to inform the development of
conclusions and recommendations of this workstream.
Public Engagement Exercise
The first 2 stages of the public and stakeholder engagement exercises have now been held. At the
first stage 2 public meetings were held in Perth, one in Cardiff and 3 in Bristol. 3 separate stakeholder
sessions were held with field advisory staff, land managers and scientists. At the second stage, the
public groups were brought together to form one workshop in Bristol and one in Perth. The stakeholders
were also brought together for a workshop in Nottingham. (Opinion Leader Research who have run the
workshop sessions on behalf of the Commission will be reporting in more detail on their findings at the
AEBC meeting on 9th December.)
Case studies
Information gathering has begun on the 2 case studies and draft background papers have been provided
for this meeting (AEBC 04/20) The aim is to produce short ‘essay style’ papers (6-8 pages) by January
next year to help demonstrate how research drivers work in practice to influence research agendas.
Plant breeding
Phil Dale’s paper on public good plant breeding has provided a useful resource for this study.
Information has also been collated on the changes that occurred in plant breeding research as a result
of its shift to the private sector in the 1980s (e.g. the sale of the Plant Breeding Institute). The
next steps with this study are to collect more information on the current situation and recent history
of plant breeding, and to get some external expertise to help with the drafting of this paper and act as
a form of ‘peer review’.
Soil Science
Jeff Maxwell has usefully provided the historical context to soil science research. Background
information to current soil science activities has also been collected and the next steps will be to
build on this to establish a more detailed picture of research in this area to date. As with the plant
breeding case study, external experts are also being sought to ‘peer review’ this paper.
Conclusions
At the last Research Agendas meeting, the group discussed some of the preliminary themes that had
emerged so far through the course of this project. The group plans to discuss these early thoughts at
the Meeting on 9th December and get input from other Members on this.
