As some of you know, I have been working with John Rees, the Natural Hazards theme leader at NERC, to develop a UK space weather strategy, linking research to operations and technology development (and hence “impact”). We now have a good draft of the strategy, building on space weather discussions at a number of workshops that have involved members of the MIST and UKSP communities. We would now like to seek a wider community review of the current draft. Thus I would like encourage you to download and read the draft strategy – and to send comments to myself and John.

To support I have put up a publicly-accessible “space weather strategy” page on the UKSSDC Twiki at:
http://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/twiki/bin/view/UKUSSpaceWeather/SpaceWeatherstrategy
This gives some background to the strategy; a link to start up an email to send comments to John and myself, and also to Bill Eason at NERC; download options for the draft strategy (as Word 2007, Word 2003 and PDF formats); and a Wiki page copy of the Executive Summary.

In this draft, we have tried to bring out the economic and societal relevance of space weather – the links from research to operations that we need maintain and develop if we are to have real impact. We have also started to bring out the links to services and to technology development (though doubtless more can be done). The emphasis on impact is intended to engage with bodies like Met Office and UKSA that have substantial interests outside the research community. So we have tried to make sure that the research element is seen as synergistic with those wider interests.

NERC is using this draft to support discussions on including space weather in its next natural hazards theme action plan. This has a first stage review by SISB later in October. So this will also provide feedback on how to take the strategy forward. We are also providing input into the STFC programmatic review process, e.g. via SSAP.