Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a Government Department in the UK. Defra's overarching challenge is to secure a healthy environment in which current and future generations can prosper.

As the UK moves towards a low carbon, resource-efficient economy, Defra helps people to adapt to changes, deals with environmental risks and makes the most of the opportunities available to secure a sustainable society and a healthy environment. This will help see the UK through the difficult economic times, volatile food and energy prices and a changing climate which all make people more aware that the environment can't be taken for granted.  

John Rea from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says success of Living with Environmental Change for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would be:

• Co-design, production and delivery of evidence relevant to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs policy issues, with effective engagement throughout the process between researchers and users (facilitated by interpreters/intelligent customers/evidence managers)
• Provision of databases and tools to help identify what evidence is already available/in progress
• Facilitation of discussions on immediate priorities, gaps and long term needs

All this needs to be delivered in a way that maximises benefits and minimizes burdens on evidence managers.