RESAS Strategic Research: 2014 Highlights

Introduction

The Scottish Government has a strong focus on the use of scientific evidence to support current policies and help define the policies of the future. The importance placed on science is reflected in my role as Chief Scientific Adviser for Rural Affairs Food and the Environment, and in the long-term support by the Scottish Government through the Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) Division for land based science in particular that shines through in many of the highlights in this RESAS Strategic Research report.

The highlights reported here reflect research undertaken to address some of the most pressing societal needs today, from climate change adaptation to securing and sustaining healthy, nutritious food. The highlights build on many years of excellent science by Scotland's Main Research Providers, which have collectively grown an applied environmental science knowledge base that is probably unequalled anywhere else in Europe in terms of its multidisciplinary approach and breadth of coverage. The 2014 Report contains notable highlights in animal, plant and applied human health. This science is driven from exemplary platforms that only a long term sustained investment could build and support.

Professor Louise Heathwaite
Chief Scientific Adviser Rural Affairs, Food and the Environment
February 2015