Professor Alex Inman

About me:

Alex is both a practitioner and academic operating within the field of natural resource management; particularly the interaction between agriculture and ecosystem function. An environmental scientist drawing heavily on social science disciplines to understand human relationships, his work over the years has focussed on technical, policy and institutional factors governing land use and its management. He joined the University of Exeter in 2016, splitting his time between academic research and his private sector consultancy career with a client base including individual farming businesses, Defra, The Environment Agency, Natural England, Water Companies, WWF, IUCN, The Rivers Trust, CPRE, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, East Devon District Council and a number of academic institutions. Stemming from his belief that farmers must be at the core of land use policy decision making, Alex is founder of the UK Farmer Group Discussion Network, launched in 2018 to provide an opportunity for grass roots members of the farming community to develop an integrated vision for multi-functional landscape in the UK. He has extensive experience as a facilitator within the context of high tension resource management issues, including chairing meetings in the badger cull pilot areas to clarify matters surrounding scientific uncertainty and cull logistics.

Some major themes in Alex’s research include:

1. Assessing the theoretical basis and practical opportunities for developing markets for ecosystem services e.g land based carbon markets, biodiversity offsetting schemes, visitor payback schemes. Alex was asked to peer review Defra’s initial thinking on these markets in 2013 (Defra’s Evidence and Analysis Series Paper “Payments for Ecosystem Services”) and he also contributed research to the Ecosystem Markets Task Force established by the coalition government to assess business led opportunities arising from valuing nature within the economic system
2. Governance arrangements for integrated land management planning – assessment of the institutional arrangements necessary to facilitate integrated planning and delivery at the landscape scale with a particular emphasis on enabling social learning and cross sectoral participation. Alex was a member of Defra’s Professional Advisor Group on the roll out of the second cycle of the EU Water Framework Directive in England and helped shape the development of the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) .
3. Attitudinal and behavioural research with land managers – numerous quantitative and qualitative studies undertaken to better understand the drivers and motivations behind farm management decisions, particularly relating to pro-environmental activity. This research has also assessed farmer attitudes to multi-generational land management agreements
4. Consumer food purchasing decision making – quantitative and qualitative attitudinal research exploring food purchasing decisions and the relative importance of environmental and health considerations therein. Also investigations of the potential for developing local food systems with shorter supply chains

The scope of my research is largely applied in nature to support the development of sustainable natural resource management policies.