Cefas is an executive agency of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Cefas is UK’s largest and most diverse applied marine science centre. Its broad capability covers shelf sea dynamics, climate effects on the marine environment, ecosystems and food security. Cefas works to address 5 main challenges:
- Sustainable Blue Growth – Balancing marine ecological objectives with the need for blue growth, and assessing the effects of human pressures on ecosystem processes.
- Intelligent monitoring of risks – using innovations in automated monitoring and remote sensing, and new technologies to carry out assessments of aquatic ecosystems and develop new insights in marine ecology.
- Accessible evidence for decision making – making the most of data by collecting once and using many times, moving to an open data world by developing a data portal for internal and external use, promoting best practice in data collection and management.
- Understanding and forecasting aquatic ecosystem change – in response to climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressures. Improving modelling capacity and emergency response, and using the ecosystem approach in forecasting.
- Meeting food security and food safety targets – achieving MSY, enhancing food safety, developing a sustainable aquaculture industry.
As the UK’s most diverse applied marine science centre, Cefas helps to shape and implement policy through internationally renowned science and collaborative relationships that span the EU, UK government, non-governmental organisations, research centres and industry.
