Planet Earth Online
At Planet Earth Online, our mission is to tell you how environmental scientists really work and to explain their research - and its importance - in plain English. Many of our stories won't be reported anywhere else.
Science moves forward in tiny steps, through papers in learned journals that each advance our knowledge of a particular subject a bit further - or challenge the conclusions of earlier work. We cover those advances as they happen, in daily news and blog posts, as well as regular features and podcasts.
We work with scientists to explain their latest research. We don't put an angle on their conclusions; we simply try to tell you about the science.
Not all of the work described in Planet Earth Online has been peer-reviewed. The views expressed are those of individual authors and not necessarily shared by NERC.
If you leave a comment on one of our stories we'll do our best to get a response from an expert in the field, though this isn't always possible. Want us to let us know your views or tell about something else you'd like us to cover? Contact us, or post a comment on our Facebook page. You can keep up to date with what's new on the website by following us on Twitter, or subscribe to our weekly email roundup.
Our quarterly magazine, Planet Earth is free to UK readers; you can subscribe by emailing requests@nerc.ac.uk. We also produce an interactive online version that's available to everyone.
Who we are
Planet Earth Online is run by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK public body that supports the natural and environmental sciences. We're the people who give money to scientists to do everything from monitoring earthquakes to researching the poles and tracking the spread of invasive species across Britain.
NERC's annual budget is around £400m. With it we make grants to scientists, contribute to major research programmes and fund national resources like our research ships, bases and laboratories.
All the science we write about has been supported by NERC, whether it's with a direct grant to the scientists, or through the use of our labs and research facilities, or because it's drawn on the expertise of one of our research centres.
If you're a scientist who's received this kind of support and you've done some research that you think non-specialists would be interested in, we'd love to hear from you, please contact us.
NERC supports six major environmental research centres:
Other information that may interest you
NERC has a number of other external information outlets, all of which are linked here:
This archive is a central repository for published material such as academic papers or reports that have resulted from research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. The last five additions are shown below:
The Science Impacts Database (SID) gives public access to case studies showing the policy, economic, social and practical impacts of NERC's science investments. The last five additions are shown below:
Provides access to information about NERC research grants.
