Smart Funding for Environmental Technology Training

Southampton University is to share in £2.5m funding to environmental scientists and engineers in the use of innovative sensor platforms such as drones and autonomous robotic submarines for monitoring and exploration.

The new Centre of Doctoral Training in ‘The use of Smart and Autonomous Observation for the Environmental Sciences’ known as NEXUSS (NEXt generation Unmanned System Science), will provide specialised training in this increasingly vital area, creating a community of highly skilled people whose expertise will contribute both to scientific breakthroughs and to economic growth.

The project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC and led by the University of Southampton in partnership the British Antarctic Survey, Heriot – Watt University, National Oceanography Centre, Scottish Association for Marine Science and University of East Anglia. It will fund training for three annual intakes of ten PhD students each, starting in 2016.

Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato, from the University of Southampton and Director of NEXUSS, said: “We are delighted to be awarded this funding by NERC and EPSRC. It is an outstanding opportunity to develop a new generation of environmental scientists that is more aware of the vast possibilities that SAOS approaches offer, and that can take forward the environmental application of these technologies in decades to come. We are particularly excited by our strong partnerships with industry, government and other SAOS stakeholders, which will allow us to better understand how our Centre may develop the highly employable leaders that the UK needs to rise to future environmental challenges.”