National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF)

放射性碳是探索地球过去5万年人类和环境历史的一个极其强大的工具。放射性碳科学需要基础设施才能处于领先地位，无论是设备和实验室等有形基础设施，但提供专业知识、推动方法开发和新应用领域以及开发系统以确保数据可访问、可互操作和可重复使用的人也同样重要。由于环境科学对放射性碳的需求，有必要在国家一级提供基本能力，原因如下：(1)社区对基础放射性碳分析的广泛需求；(2)需要处于领先地位的仪器和人员的大量持续投资；以及(3)英国研究组合所要求的交付能力。在存在这些要求的地方，国家设施是一个明显具有成本效益的机制，可以提供和支持现在和未来的环境科学研究和创新。该设施将在需要进行放射性碳分析的领域支持英国环境研究社区，促进、支持和鼓励最好的研究、技术和新想法。该机制提供的能力和专门知识要么在技术上是英国独一无二的，要么是以高标准和能力提供的，如果没有国家的支持，就不能有效地提供，而且至关重要的是代表着长期价值。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，持续的支持最符合项目领导人的需求，并使设施工作人员从更长远的角度了解主要挑战和机遇在哪里，以便最好地为环境科学界服务。该设施代表着在21世纪为英国研究界提供放射性碳能力和专业知识方面的重大前瞻性发展，提供更多的社区创新和灵活性，同时保持以具有国际竞争力的最先进的能力和专业知识支持英国科学的核心宗旨。

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.