Dr Andy Howard
Director of Science Programmes

From 2001, Andy managed the SIGMA project, to develop and deploy digital mapping systems in BGS survey programmes. Since 2005, he has managed the National Geoscience Framework, a programme to implement a national, digital 3D knowledge base of the United Kingdom. Andy joined BGS with a PhD in Jurassic sedimentology and palaeobiology in 1984, after working for Norsk Hydro in Bergen and Stavanger. He has specialised in urban environmental geology and coalfields, working on mapping projects in the Midlands and northern England. He was District Geologist in the East Midlands from 1991 to 95 and Lancashire from 1997 to 2001, and from 1993 to 2000 was Secretary of the IUGS International Working Group on Urban Geology. Andy was the first Secretary of the BGS Programme Board from 1989 to 91, and rejoined the BGS Cental Directorate in 1996 to manage the BGS contribuion to the Government's Prior Options Review of the governance of all the UK's research establishments.