Director of SAMS

Name: Professor Laurence David Mee
Telephone: 01631 559272
E-mail: Laurence.Mee@sams.ac.uk

Scientific interests

Laurence conducts multidisciplinary research into coupled social and ecological systems, ways of assessing the state of the marine environment and the interface between science and policy. Most of his work is on a regional sea scale, particularly Europe’s seas. He is a leading specialist on the Black Sea and has also conducted research in the Pacific and Caribbean. Laurence’s current research focuses on the science that underpins implementation of the marine policy at the European, UK and Scottish levels.

Education and career history

Laurence Mee graduated in oceanography from the University of Liverpool, then a PhD in the same institution following over one year of fieldwork on the Mexican Pacific coast and in the tropical Atlantic. He returned to Mexico as a lecturer and researcher in oceanography at the National University of Mexico. During his ten years in Mexico, he was responsible for the construction and operation of the country’s first ocean going research vessel and travelled extensively in Latin America. He then joined the United Nations, initially working for the UN Environmental Programme but based in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s laboratory in Monaco where he became Head of the Marine Environmental Studies Laboratory, the only laboratory of its kind in the UN system. His marine pollution assessment work took him worldwide and he became increasingly involved in policy development including advice on the drafting of Agenda 21, the product of the 1992 Rio Conference, the largest gathering of world leaders in the 20th Century. Laurence pioneered international actions to protect the Black Sea and this led to the establishment of the $110M Black Sea Environment Programme which he coordinated from 1993 to 1998.

In 1998, Laurence returned to academic life to become the UK’s first Professor of Marine and Coastal Policy, at the University of Plymouth. He developed a strong interdisciplinary research team that was highly successful at attracting funding from national and international sources and set up a unique masters programme in Coastal and Ocean Policy. In parallel, he helped to establish the Marine Institute at the University and became its first director from 2005 to 2008. He joined SAMS as Director in September 2008.

Further information

Laurence became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1993. In 1998 he became a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation (the second such award in the UK) for his work on marine environmental education in the Black Sea region. He had also been made an Academician of the Ukrainian and Georgian Academies of Ecological Science. Laurence has regularly advised the Global Environment Facility (World Bank/UNEP/UNDP) on its International Waters Focal Area and worked on the establishment of a number of international agreements. He was founding Chair of the Devon Maritime Forum, Special Adviser for the House of Commons Science Select Committee inquiry on “Investigating the Oceans” and for the joint Commons/Lords Scrutiny Committee on the UK Marine Bill. He chairs the Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea (the UK’s oldest marine NGO) and occasionally advises WWF. He is one of three non-executive members of the UK Marine Science Coordinating Committee. He is also a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of LOICZ (IGBP Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone).

Projects

Laurence maintains a high level of research activity. He coordinates a €5.74M EU-funded project, “Knowledge-based Management of Europe’s Seas (KnowSeas)”, that involves 31 partners from 15 countries across Europe. KnowSeas is providing the multidisciplinary research to underpin the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. He is responsible for research to generate social and economic objectives for Scotland’s Marine Bill and for research to support international projects funded by the GEF. He also conducts field and laboratory work on eutrophication in the Black Sea.

Publications

Laurence has published over 73 peer reviewed articles covering topics in natural and social science.