Welcome to the SECURE network

As the Principal Investigator for SECURE I would like to welcome you to our website. The SECURE network brings together the environmental and statistical communities to provide fresh intelligence and new insights into environmental change and society’s management of that change.  In this way the network addresses some of the key challenge areas including ecosystems, resources (e.g. water), health, infrastructure, climate change underpinned by environmental and earth observation.

The formal network period ended in February, 2107. During the three year network period we held a Launch Event and  two Annual Conferences in September 2106 and September 2017 , providing the opportunity for both existing and new partners to engage and to  to develop new research links.  We have also now funded 16 Feasibility projects, and sponsored four workshops.  In May 2017 we held our Grand Challenge event where we invited some of our partner organisations to present challenges.  Following this we opened our final feasibility call ("Grand Challenge Call") where we  invited Feasibility Project Applications on the challenge themes.  Following this we funded our final group of feasibility projects. We launched our conference funding support scheme in December 2015 and having allocated funding to ten individuals have just closed this funding stream.  Full details of the Feasibility Projects can be accessed through the left hand navigation.  

Environmental Change

Environmental change is a natural state, but increasingly there are concerns about the impact that anthropogenic activity has on exacerbating change and the implications this may have for a secure and sustainable future. Understanding and forecasting environmental changes are crucial to the development of strategies to mitigate against the impacts of future events.  Communications and decision-making around environmental change are sometimes troubled by issues concerning the weight of evidence, the nature and size of uncertainties and how both are described.   Evidence for environmental change comes from a number of sources, but key to SECURE is the optimal use of data (from observational, regulatory monitoring and Earth observations platforms such as satellites and mobile sensors) and models (process and statistical).  A robust and reliable evidence base is key in the decision-making process, informed by powerful statistical models and the best data. 

Professor Marian Scott, OBE, Professor of Environmental Statistics, University of Glasgow.

Arctic snow scene - SECURE