The Natural Environment Research Council will shortly be inviting applications for its highlight topics programme. The next announcement of opportunity for proposals is expected to be released in Autumn 2017. The following information is from the previous round and is subject to change.

This programme supports strategic research on defined topics that help understand environmental change. The highlight topics for this call are:

•quantifying ‘blue carbon’ ecosystem services and assessing human impacts on coastal carbon assimilation, transfer and storage;

•new insights into space weather impact on UK national grounded infrastructure;

•genesis of magmatic-hosted ore deposits: a systems approach;

•modelling and forecasting the earth’s radiation belts;

•innovative applications of big data techniques to natural hazard prediction and risk mitigation.

Research institutes that receive grant funding from one of the UK higher education bodies, and institutes that have a close involvement with research councils are eligible to apply. The principal investigator must be a UK resident, employed by an eligible research organisation as a lecturer or above. NERC staff at band 6 level with at least three years’ postdoctoral experience and employed by the council for at least 12 months may also apply.

A maximum of £3 million at 80% of FEC is available per highlight topic. The total programme budget is worth £9m.