The LWEC Partnership: 22 public sector organisations that fund, carry out and use environmental research and observations. They include the UK research councils, government departments with environmental responsibilities, devolved administrations and government agencies. The private sector is represented by a Business Advisory Board.

The LWEC Portfolio: More than 70 accredited activites, including: programmes, observations, centres of excellence, projects, all of which contribute to meeting LWEC's six core challenges. Together they represent more than £1.2 billion of investment in developing environmental knowledge, skills and understanding.

LWEC People: Interactive communities of expertise in research, policy, practice, business and other citizens who come together to share knowledge and guide future investment.

LWEC Purpose: To ensure that decision makers in government, business and society have the knowledge, foresight and tools to mitigate, adapt to and benefit from environmental change.

LWEC Funding: LWEC does not have a separate funding budget. Member organisations who have their own budgets pay an annual subscription and/or contribute staff resources to run a small directorate and/ or contribute to common needs such as a database (Envirobase) of all the research they fund.

Benefit to Taxpayers|: LWEC generates enormous benefit  for the UK tax payer.Here are a couple of examples of how:

1. Partners who fund activities relevant to LWEC challenges can come together under the LWEC umbrella to explore how to achieve the best return on their investments for the UK tax payer. It is often more cost-effective, for example, for two organisations who need different scientific evidence from a project to design the project together to get the results they both need rather than to fund two separate projects. LWEC has the convening power to bring partners together to forge these collaborations which often result in rapid innovation and quicker delivery of results. LWEC has also developed new ways to manage the contractual arrangements and changes in working practices that novel approaches can entail.

2. When looking to future knowledge and capacity needs in the UK, LWEC facilitates a multi-perspective approach to research investment strategy. For cross-cutting issues such as Flooding and Coastal Erosion, for example,  LWEC can enable individual organisations to align their strategies to achieve a more holistic approach and avoid the risk of over-representation by one discipline or interest group.

LWEC Progress:During phase one (2008-10) of its ten year time-frame: LWEC has enabled faster development of new research areas (e.g. ocean acidification), new partnerships, widening collaborations, the alignment of research activities in areas of common interest, and working practices being changed to foster collaboration and the more effective use of resources. Following the Spending Review in 2010, working together is even more necessary if LWEC challenges are to be met.

LWEC Publicity: A booklet highlighting innovation by just a few of LWEC's accredited activities was published at the request of the Technology Strategy Board for the Innovate 11 conference. That brochure can be downloaded below.

Other information about LWEC (including Board Papers) can also be downloaded below. Soon to come, an explanation of accreditation.

Any remaining questions, please contact: office@lwec.org.uk