Professor Sir Ian Boyd is currently a professor at the University of St Andrews and Chair of the UK Research Integrity Office.

He was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government on Food and the Environment (2012-2019).

He is a marine and polar scientist and previously served as the first Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute at St Andrews. He is and a director of a number of trusts and companies.

Murray Roberts is Professor of Applied Marine Biology & Ecology in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh where he moved in October 2016. He is Head of the Changing Oceans Research Group and Coordinator European H2020 ATLAS & iAtlantic projects.

Murray Roberts studies marine ecosystems and their response to changing environmental conditions and human activities in order to enhance plans for their long term management and conservation. He has worked with the offshore energy sector including oil and gas since 1997 with projects active along the Atlantic margin and in the North Sea

Murray was Professor of Marine Biology and Director of the Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University. He studied Biology at the University of York before a PhD at the University of Glasgow examining nitrogen cycling in the Anemonia viridis symbiosis. Since 1997 his work on cold-water corals and deep-sea biology has taken him to sites off the UK, Norway, Ireland and the SE United States. Murray is senior author of the ‘Cold-water Corals’ (Cambridge University Press), a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report and co-lead editor of a 2014 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity report on ocean acidification. He is Adjunct Faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he was a Marie Curie Fellow 2007-09. From 2012-15 he co-ordinated Heriot-Watt University’s role in the Lyell Centre for Earth and Marine Science and Technology. The £30M Lyell Centre is a collaboration with the British Geological Survey and Heriot-Watt University that opened in 2016. He has led or participated in 23 offshore research cruises.

Professor John Shepherd is Emeritus Professor of Earth System Science within the Ocean and Earth Science department of the Faculty of Natural and Environmental Science, University of Southampton, at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton. He served on the INSITE Advisory Board in the first, foundation phase of the Programme.
John’s specialism is Earth System Science & Modelling, Climate Change

He has led the delivery of marine policy and management solutions and institutional change for national and regional governmental bodies in the UK and overseas across all areas of the Blue Economy such as marine biodiversity conservation and Marine Protected Areas, offshore wind, maritime transport, oil and gas, marine minerals, fisheries, marine spatial planning and marine infrastructure licensing. This has included advising government ministers and senior officials in the UK and overseas and being requested to appear in front of parliamentary select committees.

A key member of the leadership team that set up the Marine Management Organisation in England Dickon held positions as Chief Scientific Advisor, Director of Marine Development and Head of Marine Licensing. He was responsible for providing marine science advice to UK government as well as delivering the practical legislative interpretation underpinning marine spatial planning and marine infrastructure licensing in England, including offshore wind.

He has directed the development and delivery of national ocean policy and marine spatial planning to support the Blue Economy and the institutional change required to deliver in many Small Island States and continues to advise governments and public bodies across the world on the Blue Economy, marine policy, management, marine science and the institutional barriers to delivery in a complex policy environment.

Professor Rachel Mills is Dean of the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Southampton, and is a member of the University Executive Board. Over her career she has developed and delivered undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Ocean and Earth Science. More recently Rachel has led the development and delivery of a free online course ‘Exploring our Ocean’ that has had global reach with learners of all ages and impact on societal understanding of sustainable oceans. She regularly provides advice and direction for a range of international and UK organisations and high-profile projects.

Rachel is a deep-sea oceanographer who works on the chemistry of the deep seafloor and its impact on life in the sea. She has led research expeditions using submersibles and remotely operated vehicles to remote and deep, unexplored parts of the ocean. Her research focuses on metal cycling at the seafloor, the formation and alteration of deep-sea mineral deposits and the dispersion of metals in the ocean.

Beth Scott has a multi-disciplinary background in marine ecology, oceanography and fisheries. Her approach focuses on the functional linkages between fine scale bio-physical oceanographic processes, flexible individual life history traits and population dynamics of a range of fish and seabird species through both empirical data collection and modelling approaches. Her focus has been the spatial and temporal identification of critical marine habitats where mobile predator and prey species interact. Recently her research portfolio has been focused on the understanding of the effects of marine renewable energy systems on multi-trophic interactions and the methods for co-developing a Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) decision-support system with a range of stakeholders (industry, government, NGOs) to better incorporate ecosystem service knowledge and values into effective policies.

Scott is currently a Co-Director for the EPSRC Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Supergen Hub, a member of the Scottish Government Offshore Renewables Research (ScotMER), part of the Advisory Group for the Scottish Biodiversity Programme Board Advisory Group and on the European Marine Board Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy. She was a member of the Ministerial DEFRA Marine Protected Areas Science Advisory Panel (2009-12) as well as the Forum Coordinator for Marine Renewable Energy Forum, MASTS (2012-19).

Tracy has over 30 years’ experience in environmental geochemistry. She obtained an MSc. From Strathclyde University and a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University. Her research interests include the investigation and assessment of human impacts on the marine environment through the monitoring of pollutants and the study of biogeochemical processes involved in their redistribution.

Tracy is the Director for the Lyell Centre, a purpose-built £21 m facility, which will enable the British Geological Survey (BGS) and Heriot-Watt University (HWU) to build on their individual and combined interdisciplinary expertise in land and marine conservation, geology and geoscience

She is interested in how science and innovation can come together to realise societal benefit and economic growth and was a member of the Scotland Can Do Forum set up by the Scotland’s Deputy First Minister. She also works with the Scottish CENSIS Innovation Centre.