Building capacity globally
Through the National Capability for Global Challenges (NC-Global programme, UKCEH scientists are delivering world-leading science that helps countries, organisations, and companies to develop and deliver plans to reduce emissions, increase carbon sinks of natural and managed ecosystems, and adapt and build resilience to climate change, while considering possible cascading effects and trade-offs.
Capacity building is a key focus, with. NC-Global advancing environmental science while supporting the people, networks, and systems required to address complex global challenges. The programme has reached hundreds of researchers, policymakers and professionals, and the feedback has been positive:
“The science has been amazing. You never quite understand the kind of effort that goes into creating [weather forecasting] tools and just being here interacting with the scientists that research those tools has really opened up my mind!” – Jemimah Gacheru, Principal Meteorologist at the Kenyan Meteorological Department
“Coming [to UKCEH] meant getting best practices and insights that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.” – Mendrika Rakotomanga, PhD researcher at the University of Leeds.
“The most useful aspect of the internship has been the significant improvement in my coding skills through intensive, hands-on scientific programming – something rarely taught in formal university courses but essential for research. My projects resulted in open-source outputs, which not only contribute to the wider scientific community but also serve as valuable demonstrations of my knowledge and skills for future study and career opportunities.” – Ziyan Fang, NC-Global intern at UKCEH in 2025.
“I am committed to continuing my engagement with colleagues here at UKCEH to support projects with strong socioeconomic relevance, ultimately contributing to research that is meaningful to both academic and policy communities.” – Dr Jacob Agyekum, Research Scientist at the Water Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-WRI), Ghana.
Investing in people: Strengthening the next generation of scientists
Much of the capacity-building has been focused support for Early Career Researchers (ECRs). NC-Global has invested significantly in opportunities for ECRs, helping them build skills, strengthen networks, and gain experience in international environmental science.
To date, the programme has directly supported 287 ECRs, including 139 UK-based researchers and 148 international ECRs from countries such as Sri Lanka, Austria, China, Italy, Slovakia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Thailand, Colombia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
This investment helps build scientific capacity in the UK and globally, creating long-term impact and lasting international links. UKCEH has reached these ECRs, and others, through several different approaches, including a Visiting Scientist Scheme, an internship scheme, support for academic supervision, and direct training in specific tools and skills related to Net Zero Plus.
Support for Early Career Researchers: the NC-Global Internship Scheme and Supervisory Contributions
The primary intervention focused on ECRs was the internship scheme run in 2025. Eight interns participated in six-week research placement programmes, developing skills in coding, data science, modelling, scientific programming, and other areas while at the same time developing individual projects and contributing open-source outputs to the wider scientific community.
Within six months of completing their placements, participants reported significant career progression, including securing PhD offers and presenting their research in international conferences.
"My internship at UKCEH has been extremely valuable in supporting my postgraduate applications… I received PhD offers from both UEA and Oxford." - Hannah Wilson Kemsley
"I am now significantly more comfortable handling complex programming problems and visualising very large data sets… which has been very helpful for my PhD." – Ezra Porter
Another intern, Claudia Mameli, was able to transfer expertise she learned during her time at UKCEH to new work at the University of Vienna. She wrote: “I have been working with my supervisor here in Vienna in adapting specific methodology I learned from the internship into another project based in the Alps … The methods I am bringing to the team are something that is new to the Department of Biodiversity here at the university, which means I am now introducing these concepts to more people and sharing my knowledge as well.”
Claudia’s work has also been made publicly available here. Several other interns also produced work now contributing to the wider scientific community, for example Ziyan Fang's work on making JULES and PROSUM more accessible: here and here. Results from the work of another intern, Hannah Dunstan, have recently been featured in a recent UKCEH Counting the Earth podcast (lab experiments described from 16:17 onwards).
Beyond structured programmes, NC-Global funding has enabled UKCEH scientists to dedicate time to mentoring ECRs. In 2024–2025, UKCEH staff advised students from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka in water resource management. Making time to provide this type of 1:1 support has led to robust partnerships and increasingly is leading to tangible results.
For example, collaboration between UKCEH staff and ECRs at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) led to the co-development of a UK–Malaysia policy brief on flood risk: ‘Assessing and Managing Flood Risk: A Shared Knowledge Agenda – UK and Malaysia (2023)’. This is now available to inform national decision-making in Malaysia.
Catalysing international collaboration: Visiting Scientist Scheme
The NC-Global Visiting Scientist Scheme (VSS) was set up to support UKCEH staff to engage in longer-term collaborative work with visitors from other organisations around the world. Emphasis is put on making sure visits are mutually beneficial, with a two-way exchange of learning between the UK and partner institutions worldwide.
In 2024–2025, the Visiting Scientist Scheme supported 13 international researchers from 11 countries. Most visitors were ECRs. As of March 2026, all visitors were still in regular contact with their hosts, working on ongoing research collaborations or planning future ones. Some of the ongoing post-visit results include:
A co-authored paper on heat stress in Kenya has been published in Weather, demonstrating successful international research collaboration between UKCEH and the Kenyan Meteorological Department (KMD). In addition, KMD have now started issuing Heat Index forecasts for Nairobi, with plans to expand nationwide. Read more here.
The PANCAST nowcasting model developed by visiting scientist Mendrika Rakotomanga has been deployed on the UKCEH portal, with further development funded for real-world use in Madagascar and ongoing evaluation in international forecasting projects.
Research on greenhouse gas emissions at Ghana’s Volta Lake is progressing toward publication and international presentation at the EGU General Assembly 2026, driven by ongoing collaboration between Prince Jnr. Asilevi of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and his hosts at UKCEH.
Building capacity through training opportunities
NC-Global has also carried out targeted capacity building activities through training on specific tools, models and research. A significant international expansion of UKCEH training is JULES Academy. Funded by NC-Global, JULES Academy provides in-depth training on the science and code underpinning the JULES model; a leading international community land surface model and the core land surface component in the Met Office Unified Model. Training began in 2025, focusing initially on researchers and technical experts in East and West Africa. The core training was delivered to cohort of 24 participants from 18 institutions in nine countries, while additional lectures and workshops reached more than 100 other stakeholders and students.
JULES Academy will continue in 2026/27, delivering more training and setting up locally-led networks around land and atmosphere modelling in partnership with WASCAL in West Africa, and ICPAC and HoAREC in East Africa to embed learning and develop regional modelling expertise.
A participant in the initial phase of JULES Academy reported that: "We greatly value its focus on hands-on learning, personalized coaching, and interactive sessions that foster a supportive learning environment."
Beyond JULES Academy, training delivered through the NC-Global programme has reached Malaysia, Ghana and Kenya. This training has built capacity on specific UKCEH practical tools and knowledge products related to air quality modelling, hydrological modelling and storm nowcasting. In total, these targeted sessions have engaged 35 participants - established experts and practitioners from partner institutions - equipping them with advanced technical skills and strengthening their capacity to apply UK-developed tools and approaches within their own research and operational contexts.
"Through this workshop, I have gained a clearer understanding of how to utilise analyses generated by the EMEP-WRF model. The outputs from EMEP-WRF can be integrated with the CMAQ model to provide a more comprehensive interpretation of atmospheric conditions and air pollution in Malaysia. I plan to apply this knowledge directly in my current work by enhancing model-based assessments, as well as sharing the insights with colleagues through internal discussions and capacity-building activities." – A participant in the Air Quality Modelling workshop held by UKCEH staff in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in October 2025.
Building capacity for the future
Together, the various strands of capacity-building work being carried out under NC-Global are helping to ensure the world is better prepared to manage climate change and associated environmental challenges. UKCEH is investing not only in world-leading environmental science, but in the people, partnerships and networks needed to ensure that knowledge can be applied where it is needed most: Supporting the development of global solutions to global challenges.