National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF)

放射性碳是探测过去5万年来地球人类和环境历史的强大工具放射性碳科学需要基础设施才能处于领先地位，包括设备和实验室等物理基础设施，但同样重要的是提供专业知识的人，推动方法开发和新的应用领域，并开发系统以确保数据可访问，可互操作和可重用。环境科学对放射性碳的要求需要在国家一级提供基础能力，原因如下：（1）社区对基础放射性碳分析的广泛需求;（2）需要在仪器和人员方面进行大量持续投资，以保持领先地位;（3）英国研究组合所需的交付能力。在存在这些要求的地方，国家设施是一个证明具有成本效益的机制，可以在现在和将来提供和支持环境科学研究和创新。该设施将在需要放射性碳分析的领域支持英国的环境研究界，促进、支持和鼓励最好的研究、技术和新想法。该设施提供的能力和专业知识要么在英国技术上是独一无二的，要么是以高标准和高能力提供的，如果没有国家的支持，就无法有效提供，而且至关重要的是代表了长期价值。国家设施的好处是，它将大于其各部分的总和。除了直接支持项目和提供培训外，持续的支持最适合项目领导人的需要，并为设施工作人员提供长期的视角和对主要挑战和机遇的理解，以便为环境科学界提供最佳服务。该设施代表了一个重大的前瞻性发展，在提供放射性碳的能力和专业知识，为英国研究界在21世纪世纪，提供了更多的社区创新和灵活性，同时保留了支撑英国科学与国际竞争力，国家的最先进的能力和专业知识的核心目的。

Radiocarbon is an immensely powerful tool to probe Earth's human and environmental history over the past 50,000 years Radiocarbon science requires infrastructure in order to be at the leading edge, both physical infrastructure such as equipment and laboratories, but as important are the people who provide the expertise, drive method development and new areas of application, and develop systems to ensure data are accessible, interoperable and reusable. The requirements for radiocarbon in environmental sciences necessitate delivery of fundamental capabilities at a national level for the following reasons: (1) breadth of community need for fundamental radiocarbon analyses; (2) the substantial continued investment, both instruments and people, required to be at the leading edge; and (3) the capacity of delivery demanded by the UK research portfolio. Where these requirements exist, national facilities are a demonstrably cost-effective mechanism to deliver and underpin environmental science research and innovation, now and in the future.The Facility will operate to underpin the UKs environmental research community in areas where radiocarbon analyses are required, facilitating, supporting and encouraging the best research, technology and new ideas. The capabilities and expertise delivered by the Facility are either technically unique within the UK and/or are delivered at a high-standard and capacity and cannot be effectively delivered without national support, and crucially represent long-term value. The benefits of a national facility are that it will be greater than the sum of its parts. In addition to the direct support of projects and provision of training, sustained support best fit the needs of the project leaders and provide facility staff with a longer-term perspective and understanding of where the major challenges and opportunities are in order to best service the environmental science community. The Facility represents a major forward-looking evolution in the provision of radiocarbon capabilities and expertise for the UK research community in the 21st century, providing increased community innovation and flexibility, whilst retaining the core purpose of underpinning UK science with internationally competitive, state-of-the-art capabilities and expertise.