Science Strategy
Introduction
The human species and virtually all complex life on this planet depend fundamentally on plants and photosynthesis. Plants harness the sun’s energy, generate the oxygen in the air we breathe and are used by humanity for a great variety of purposes. In turn, most species depend on fungi for their nutrition and for powering the great cycle of decay and regrowth that underpins all life on land.
In the coming decades the plant and fungal sciences will play an increasingly prominent role in public policy and in our day-to-day activities. From the provision of alternative and renewable sources of energy to feeding a burgeoning human population, and from providing new pharmaceuticals to conserving and restoring ecosystems degraded or destroyed by human activities, an understanding of how plants and fungi can be used and conserved will become ever more important. As natural ecosystems play a key role in many global geochemical processes, including the control of atmospheric composition, careful consideration of vegetation cover must also be an integral component of models of future global change.
In this context there is a compelling need to continue scientific exploration of the plant and fungal worlds and to understand the biology and ecology of plants and fungi. Similarly, our responsibility to increase public understanding of plants and fungi – and how we depend on them in fundamental ways – has never been more important. Therefore, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the mission of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has great relevance – and this introduces urgency and a need for social responsibility into Kew's planning for the future.
In the 2000/1 Corporate Plan, the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew recognised that to fulfil the potential contained in its unrivalled collections, the organisation must constantly renew its commitment to fundamental world-class scientific research, and provide new and better ways of giving access to the physical collections and information that it holds – for UK scientists and for collaborators around the world. Collaboration is especially important since Kew's financial resources, however well they are developed, will never be sufficient to complete the work that needs to be done. The staff also agreed that Kew's efforts must provide significant practical benefits to our diverse stakeholders. In particular, a clear commitment was made to increase our efforts in the area of plant and fungal conservation.
At the same time, it was recognised that Kew must strengthen its education programmes, to build broader public appreciation of the fundamental and often subtle ways that plant and fungal diversity affects us all. The combination of Kew's collections, botanical, mycological and horticultural expertise, and unique gardens, heritage landscapes and buildings, must provide an emotional, enjoyable and educational experience that meets current commercial standards but that is qualitatively different from that provided by any other garden or visitor attraction. This is crucial if Kew is to fulfil successfully its mission in terms of increasing public understanding of plants and fungi.
In order to achieve these ambitions it was recognised that each annual Corporate Plan needed to be cast in the broader context of the institution's longer term objectives. It is against this background that staff throughout the organisation began to develop this initial strategic plan for science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This work revisits, expands upon and supersedes the vision of Kew's science developed in the Kew 2020 document produced in 1995 (and updated 1997). The results of the Science Strategy Review were used to revise fundamentally the 2001/2 Corporate Plan and have had a significant impact on subsequent Corporate Plans. The 2006/07 Corporate Plan presented, for the first time, team-by-team future plans, with a concomitant reduction in the volume and level of details presented at general programme level.