1 February 2012

Climate change, Biofuels and Scotland's church records - CECHR 2nd annual symposium

Biofuels of the future, new approaches to tackling some of the problems created by climate change, and an examination of Scotland's climate through early church records will be among the subjects discussed at the second annual symposium of CECHR - the University of Dundee's Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience.

The event at the West Park Conference Centre in Dundee on Feburary 2nd brings together the research strands of CECHR and will feature contributions from academics and students.

CECHR is a joint research venture between the University of Dundee and the James Hutton Institute examining environmental change and how society can react to it. Key themes to be explored at the symposium are:

• Food Futures
• Health Futures
• Energy Futures
• Water Futures

The Centre brings together researchers from many different disciplines including plant sciences and ecosystems, environmental research, geography, law, engineering, life sciences and other areas.

'The issue of how we react to the effects of environmental change is a huge one and it needs to be addressed through a wide variety of expertise,' said John Rowan, Director of CECHR.

'So we need to look back to things like early recordings of weather in Scotland as documented in church records, and forwards to how we develop new biofuels using bacteria. The symposium is an opportunity for researchers from all of the different discplines to share knowledge and debate future direction.

'We also have very significant input from students through our Graduate Forum.'

The symposium takes place on Thursday Feburary 2nd from 8.45am at the West Park Conference Centre, Perth Road, Dundee.

For more on CECHR see: www.dundee.ac.uk/centres/cechr/.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07800 581902