Employee profiles
Paul
Marine Climate Change Programme Officer, Ecosystem Interactions, Lowestoft
Since starting work at Cefas in summer 2006, my main focus has been to help develop the UK marine climate change impacts partnership (MCCIP). This mainly involves co-ordinating scientific evidence from UK marine and climate change research institutes to provide policy makers and other marine stakeholders with the most up to date sceintific evidence. We host the secretariat at Cefas and represent a wide range of sponsors from government, its agencies and NGOs.
Given the increasingly high profile of climate change it has been really interesting to get involved with, especially given the fledgling nature of impacts and adaptation in the marine environment. Being hosted at Cefas is really helpful as there is a lot of expertise already here and hopefully a lot more to come as our climate capability continues to grow. My work is really varied and includes such things as publishing an annual peer reviewed report card, running a website, writing newsletters and articles, presenting at conferences and reporting to our steering group and various working groups.
Coming from a climate change background rather than from marine sciences Cefas wasn't particuarly on my radar, but since arriving I have been really impressed by some of the world class research carried out here. There seems to be lots of reasons to be optimistic for the future. I really enjoy working here and if I had to pick out a personal highlight then it would be the launch of our first marine climate change report card in November 2006. Going to the launch event, speaking at a key conference about the report card and seeing all the press coverage was really satisfying. Seeing similar approaches being adopted in other countries around the world is hopefully another sign that we are getting something right!
Cefas is a great place to work, its nice to be around people who are so enthusiastic about their work areas, its not something you always see so often these days. There is plenty of scope for career development and training opportunities and the breadth of work being carried out is really impressive. The staff here are really supportive and I found them very willing to place trust in me from day one, which certainly helped give me lots of confidence to quickly take on more and more responsibility.
On the social side of things Cefas is a very friendly place and there are loads of opportunities to get into playing sports, from somewhat sedate pastimes like the summer bowls competition to beach volleyball. With the relocation of the Burnham Laboratory during 2008 this will undoubtedly help to strengthen (even further) our civil service 5-a-side football team!