David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science has appointed Professor Paul Monks from the Department of Chemistry to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is the UK's main agency for funding and managing world-class research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. It coordinates some of the world's most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on earth, and much more.

NERC receives almost £400 million a year from the government's science budget, which it uses to provide independent research and training in the environmental sciences. It also generates external income from industry, government departments and other bodies.

Council members have corporate responsibility for all NERC's actions and those of its staff. They decide issues such as corporate strategy, key strategic objectives and targets, and major decisions involving the use of financial and other resources.

Professor Monks joins the Council as an academic member for a period of 4 years, effective from 1 August 2011.

Professor Monks said: “I am excited by the challenge offered by this appointment to help shape the future of UK environmental science.  NERC delivers excellent environmental research and to be a part of that is important, there is no doubt there are future challenges to deliver excellence with impact.”
Professor Paul Monks is Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Earth Observation Science at the University of Leicester.  He studied at the Universities of Warwick and Oxford before working at NASA/Goddard and the UEA in collaboration with CSIRO in Australia.   He is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2004, he was awarded the EU Lillehamer Young Scientist award.

His primary research interests are the scientific questions underlying: the role of photochemistry in the control of atmospheric composition; chemistry and transport, particularly the impact of long-range transport on chemical composition; the feedbacks between climate and atmospheric chemistry; organic complexity and the control of regional pollution and the measurement of tropospheric composition from space.   He is also actively involved in knowledge exchange with the forensic, security and health sectors.
Professor Monks is currently chair of DEFRA Air Quality Expert Group (Government Science Advisory Committee on Air Quality, BIS Space Leadership Council (provides high level advice to Space Agency and Government), Co-chair for the IGBP-IGAC project (international program that co-ordinates efforts in global environmental change research, management Committee for ACCENT+ (a EU trans-national network of atmospheric composition scientists) and Co-Chair of Met Office/NERC Scientific Strategy Group for the Joint Weather and Climate Research Program.