About us
We're a collaborative research and development programme. We use academic led research to provide flood risk professionals with information to manage flood risk.
Flooding and coastal erosion affects millions of people in England and Wales. Managing these risks is vital to create safer and resilient communities.
The FCERM research and development programme is a collaborative partnership between the following organisations:
- Environment Agency
- Defra
- Welsh Government
- Natural Resources Wales
Each organisation publishes its own outputs and provides the evidence to support policy and practice. We use our research to help flood practitioners but we do not make decisions for the organisations we work with.
The organisations we work on behalf of are all flood and coastal risk management authorities (RMAs) in England and Wales. RMAs work together to reduce the risk of flooding and coastal erosion.
What we do
We produce reports, guidance documents, tools and techniques, conference papers seminars/webinars and scientific journals so that flood risk professionals can:
- understand and assess coastal and flood risks now and in the future
- manage flood and coastal erosion assets in an efficient and sustainable way
- prepare for and manage flood events effectively
- increase resilience to flooding across sectors and society
We often work in collaboration with others. We work with the wider academic community and their funders to help translate research into policy and practical advice for flood risk professionals.
We also aim to make sure that research underpins what we do in FCERM and that research commissioned by others meets policy and practical needs. Find out how you can work with us.
We have an interactive presentation - research FCRM which describes the Environment Agency team and details the work of the Joint Programme.
Our priorities
We decide on our research priorities using a range of strategic political, environmental, sociological, technological, legal and economic factors.
Our strategic objectives for research:
- better understand future flood and coastal erosion risk
- prepare for the scale and frequency of future incidents
- optimise the management of FCERM infrastructure
- improve responsibility and funding for flood and coastal risk
- understand the potential of new technology and innovation
- increase resilience to flood and coastal erosion risk