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Annual Report 2019-20 Independent marine science since 1884 sd 2 3 Contents About SAMS Our vision is an ocean in balance that is 04 Welcome 26 Public engagement healthy and sustainable. We work towards this by… 28 06 At a glance People • DISCOVERING new knowledge about the oceans through world-class, transformational research • COMMUNICATING our new knowledge through inspirational 08 Research 30 Finance education and public engagement and • APPLYING this knowledge through government, business and research partnerships to solve some of the greatest 18 Education 32 Publications challenges facing our planet Our research embraces the great of Association. It is also a registered 22 43 challenge of our time: how to provide Scottish charity with a membership. Enterprise Staff list sustainable food and energy for a growing It operates two wholly owned active human population while safeguarding the subsidiary companies: SAMS health, biodiversity and productivity of the Research Services Limited natural environment. SAMS focuses on and SAMS Limited. marine related aspects of this challenge, conducting research around the world, SAMS is a founding academic partner Trustees and Directors of the charity across disciplines and at all scales with of the University of the Highlands and our partners and stakeholders. To ensure Islands, an Associated Institution of the any new knowledge we generate is used United Nations University, and a delivery Chair Trustees we educate, inspire, advise and collaborate partner of UK Research and Innovation – with all sectors of society. Natural Environment Research Council. Diana Murray CBE Hazel Allen Ian D Dunn Founded by Sir John Murray in 1884 in Registered office: Mark T S Batho Professor Ailsa Hall Edinburgh, SAMS is the United Kingdom’s Scottish Association for Marine Science oldest independent and dedicated marine Dunbeg | Oban Professor John Baxter John MacKerron science organisation, engaged in research, Argyll PA37 1QA Sarah Brown Dr Deborah McNeill education and enterprise. Scotland | United Kingdom Professor Colin Dr Magnus Nicolson SAMS is a company limited by guarantee Charity Number: SC009206 Brownlee Susan Watts governed by its Memorandum and Articles Registered Number: SC009292 Lisa Chilton Editors: Dr Anuschka Miller & Euan Paterson Designer: Iona Harvey Cover image: Photo by Alasdair O’Dell. A large seaweed harvest takes place at SAMS’ seaweed farm, Loch Linnhe, to understand methods required for large-scale seaweed aquaculture. 4 5 Welcome! We had another rich and varied year, to say some of what is reported here and can only celebrate a selection of was funded by the EU and produced in highlights in this annual report. We have collaboration with European colleagues, been fulfilling our mission of conducting with some of whom we have worked some great research, inspiring the next for many years. As I write we are still generation and providing solutions to uncertain what the future will look like. achieve sustainable oceans. Beyond that we also engaged in a major exercise On climate change, SAMS is among the SAMS research and to develop our 2020-2025 strategic leading UK organisations conducting education are of plan. Although the strategy was not research into its impacts on the increasing relevance published during the reporting year, physical, chemical, biological and social most of the groundwork was laid during marine system. Not only do we try to to a society that faces this period with numerous consultation disentangle what is a phenomenally a climate emergency, meetings with staff, trustees and complex problem, we also try to discover plastic waste crisis and stakeholders. I was particularly keen and communicate understanding and to test the robustness of our business prediction to manage its consequences unprecedented species model – what I call the three-legged and mitigate the causes where possible. extinction rates. We stool model. The three legs of the SAMS We are part of the solution and there are scientists must redouble business model are research, education examples of our work to demonstrate and enterprise. I am pleased to report that. our efforts for a healthy this was deemed to be a sound basis and sustainable marine for the next five years for SAMS but we I cannot end without a reference to the environment. sharpened its description to the more COVID-19 pandemic, which descended dynamic discover, communicate and on us in the last weeks of this formal apply. You will see many world-class reporting year, heralding a quite examples of each of these in this report. exceptional period for human society. It may be appropriate to detail some of Of course, all this thinking about the our responses in next year’s report but future cannot be considered in isolation. suffice to say here, SAMS remained Last year’s activities were carried out open to continue our work to discover, against the background of Brexit and communicate and apply. climate change. The former did not influence us unduly, and I’m pleased I hope you enjoy our report. Professor Nicholas JP Owens SAMS Director 6 7 At a Glance Honorary Finance Research Fellows 17 Operating income Operating expenditure Trustees Tenants £11M £10.65M 12 45 SAMS members 267 Staff Activities 161 TAUGHT 3 PROGRAMMES £6,870K Total 700 Research income £1,627K Education income COMMERCIAL 67 contracts £1,448K Commercial income Other income £730K / Capital grants £322K FUNDED 118 research projects Students PEER- 198 f y t 121 REVIEWED family The SAMS publications 5,413 131 10,331 Facebook friends YouTube videos Twitter followers SCHOOL 130 527 pupils trained Staff Total Students 161 Total 198 ALGAL 37 CULTURES BSc Marine Science: 1,334 supplied PhD: l n , www.ccap.ac.uk Research: 64 MSc Aquaculture, Environment & Society: 30 1,150 5,180 222 Science support: 33 MRes Algal Biotech, Ecology Instagram followers LinkedIn followers Media mentions VISITORS *Other: 64 & Biology: 1 5,101 to the Ocean Explorer Centre *Education, Enterprise, Professional Services, Management 8 9 The Covid-effect on research Research overview Dr Helena Reinardy In March 2020 I travelled to Longyearbyen in the High Arctic, carrying SAMS researchers study many aspects of We have been working on both a public corporate in my luggage newly designed primers for epigenetic marker genes. At the marine and coastal environment to further strategy and an internal research strategy during much the University Centre in Svalbard I conduced qPCR gene expression develop our understanding of how the ocean of the reporting period, trying to prepare for an uncertain analyses on polar cod larvae over a hectic four days, hastened by system works and the role our seas and global future outside the European Union. We have ambitious oceans play in the planetary ecosystem and plans to enhance our reputation for research excellence the sudden notification that the laboratory was closing due to the human society. Our team also develops solutions and to increase the impact and influence of our science. worsening COVID-19 pandemic sweeping through Europe. that help society manage the marine environment in We will apply our research expertise to the large global a sustainable manner and that support marine-based challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and the I shortened the PCR protocol to the minimum and the final qPCR plate businesses with environmentally friendly know-how. need for sustainable food and energy for a still growing was run and saved, and the data was snatched away on a USB drive 15 We have a particular geographic focus on the North human population. minutes before the doors were closed and locked. The island was going Atlantic and Arctic oceans but conduct research all around the world. Towards the end of the reporting year we entered the into lockdown and I only had a couple of hours to pack up and leave coronavirus pandemic period that affected our research on the last plane. But I knew that exciting data was safe in my pocket, Internally we no longer operate in in many ways. While most our activities moved from the ready to be analysed. discipline-specific departments but in three laboratory to home-working in a virtual environment, a multi-disciplinary research areas that cover the substantial amount of field and laboratory work had to The research is part of a collaboration with Nord University and Tromsø discovery, underpinning and applied research be postponed or amended. The laboratory remained University investigating epigenetic changes in polar cod exposed to oil spectra that are of relevance to academia, open as we deliver frontline services with our governments, regulators, communities, NGOs monitoring work for harmful algae and had to maintain under climate change conditions. and industry. The following pages thus report our living cultures and resources. A substantial number some highlights from our Ocean Systems, of staff were furloughed but most of our researchers Dynamic Coasts and Blue Economy worked from home, focusing on data analysis, paper Research Areas. and proposal writing. Ocean Systems Dynamic Coasts Blue Economy Research Spectrum Discovery Underpinning Applied Timescales Long Term Near Term Immediate Enduser International Regulators & Industry(ies) Science/Panels Communities Spatial Relevance Global/Basin Land-Sea-Shelf Site/Resource focus Type of Impact Global Recognition Regional/National RegulatoryTools Agenda Setting Policy Industry Solutions Figure: SAMS research is organised into three trans-disciplinary research areas. 10 11 Running AMOC Ocean Systems SAMS oceanographers published a series of papers outlining changes in the North Atlantic and the effect of a freshening Arctic on the Atlantic Overturning Meridonal Research Circulation (AMOC), the vast ocean current that carries heat from the tropics to the Arctic. This research area explores the key processes that Building on data from the RAPID ever mounted in the planet’s comprise the interconnected systems by which and OSNAP mooring arrays, second largest ocean and involves our oceans function.