About

UKEOF is the coordinating body across the public sector for the UK's environmental observation community. As such it plays a vital role in improving the coordination of the UK's observational evidence needed to understand and manage the changing natural environment.

As a partnership of public sector organisations (including government, research councils, devolved administrations and environment agencies) with an interest in using and providing evidence from environmental observations, UKEOF is unique in bringing together the main organisations involved in the field. Together they generate and manage in situ and remote environmental observations across the UK. This collaborative approach helps inform strategic direction in environmental observations and supports the efficient delivery of operational services. UKEOF informs policy, management, science and innovation for environmental and economic benefit.

UKEOF provides a neutral space for organisations to discuss efficiencies and collaborative working and it benefits its members by providing a central source of advice and information, enabling knowledge exchange, collaboration and networking, and by helping to reduce duplication of effort.

• To achieve effective partnership working in environmental observations
• To maximise the benefits of observations to the UK including for science, policy and economic growth.

Please see Management Group for a list of our partner organisations and their representatives on the UKEOF Management Group.

The UKEOF Delivery Plan sets out the aims of UKEOF, current work areas, management and working groups and the work plan. The Delivery Plan is reviewed and updated at intervals by the Management Group.

2008
UKEOF was launched in April 2008 following acknowledgment of the long standing issues surrounding monitoring, observation and surveillance at a 2006 Environmental Research Funders Forum (ERFF) workshop on environmental monitoring. UKEOF was established as a means to support better communication and sharing of information across the UK environmental observations community. It was initially set up as five year programme.

The original work programme was split into five distinct streams:

1. Develop a holistic picture of overall evidence needs
2. Share knowledge and information on observation plans, programmes and data
3. Enable effective and transparent decision making processes
4. Enable funding for observation programmes to be effective, transparent and capable of supporting the long-term needs of the UK
5. Build a strong community that provide evidence in an efficient and effective manner
    

This first phase of the programme focused on the development of tools for use by partners and stakeholders to support transparent and evidence-based decision making.

As the programme progressed, the requirements of the partners and stakeholders changed resulting in the need to accelerate the progression of some activities and postpone others. The programme therefore developed into a more flexible model and UKEOF moved into a second phase of promoting the uptake of the tools by partners and focusing on a number of priority areas.

2010
Following the development of the Statement of Need, in 2010, the scope of UKEOF was increased to include environmental socio-economic information that is required to fully address environmental issues and questions. A workshop was held in September 2010 to assess the socio-economic observation needs within UKEOF.

In June 2010, ERFF was merged with the NERC Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, and UKEOF became their core activity on observations.

2013
Five years after the start of the programme, NERC and Defra, as the two main funders, commissioned a review of UKEOF that reported in April 2013. There was full support from the Management Group of the recommendation to continue UKEOF.

2016
The Centre for Ecology & Hydtrology (now UKCEH) took over the running of the Secretariat from NERC.

2017
A second review of UKEOF was conducted, which confirmed its value to the observation and monitoring community across the UK. One user commented that if "UKEOF didn’t exist, we would need to invent it".

UKEOF set up its Natural Capital Working Group* and the first meeting was held in March 2018.

2019
The UK DNA Working Group, which had been operating for several years, formally became a UKEOF Working Group.

2020
The first UKEOF conference took place in February 2020, in Manchester. No conference was held during 2021 (due to the disruption caused by the COVID pandemic), but with further conferences taking place online in 2022 and 2023, the UKEOF annual conference series was firmly established.

2021
We established the UKEOF Earth Observation Calibration & Validation Working Group.

* Prior to the establishment of the NCWG, UKEOF Working Groups were: Citizen Science Working Group, Data Advisory Group and a short-lived Monitoring and Modelling group. Read more about current and past Working Groups and other activities.

Header image by William Hook, via Unsplash.com