Mark Thorley is the Data Management Co-ordinator for the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council - NERC (www.nerc.ac.uk).  He is responsible for activities relating to scientific data and information management, and for co-ordinating the activities of NERC’s network of environmental data centres (see data.nerc.ac.uk).  He is one of the authors of NERC’s Science Information Strategy, and has specific expertise in the development and implementation of data and information policies, including issues around Open Access and Freedom of Information legislation, and on charging and reuse of public sector information.  He works closely with the Financial Services Sector on a number of projects involved in making better use of environmental information in the understanding and pricing of environmental risk.  He has also recently taken on responsibility for management of the library services within NERC’s research centres. 

He has been in this post since 2002.  Prior to this he was manager of the Antarctic Environmental Data Centre at the British Antarctic Survey (www.bas.ac.uk), where amongst other things he was one of the founders of the Antarctic Master Directory system.  He is a member of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) Research Outputs Group which produced the RCUK Position Statement on Access to Research Outputs (see www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/default.htm) and he also represented the UK on the OECD working group which developed the Principles and Guidelines for access to digital research data from public funding.