Sophie Laurie

Role: Panellist: Interdisciplinary Global Health Research: from research funding to policy and impact
Affiliation: Natural Environment Research Council

Biography:

Sophie Laurie is Associate Director of Innovation and Impact at the Natural Environment Research Council. NERC is one of the seven UK Research Councils which collectively have responsibility for £3bn pa of funding to help support the UK academic community to research and innovate. As well as funding research in Higher Education Institutions NERC supports six Research Centres covering the breadth of the environment from the deep ocean to the inner atmosphere, and innovation and translation activities in NERC serve to encourage funded academics to realise the economic and societal benefits of their world-leading environmental research.

Prior to joining NERC in 2015, Sophie was Head of International in the Research Councils UK Strategy Unit. RCUK is a partnership of the seven UK Research Councils and the International team works strategically with key contacts in target countries such as Japan and Brazil and with the RCUK Overseas teams in the US, China and India, to deliver the RCUK ambition for excellent international research partnerships. Sophie represented the UK Research Councils in a number of advisory bodies and policy fora in UK and overseas, including on various aspects of the European Framework Programmes and Horizon 2020.

Sophie came to the Research Councils in 2003 following 18 years of academic research in plant biology, working at University College London and the former BBSRC Institute for Arable Crops Research (now Rothamsted Research).