Alison Robinson is NERC’s director of corporate affairs. Alison is responsible for NERC’s corporate strategy and planning, insight, futures, business and stakeholder engagement, sustainability, public engagement with environmental science, impact and outcomes evidence and takes a leading role in managing change.
Before joining NERC in July 2014, she led on policy and external affairs during the successful start-up of the Legal Ombudsman, a national organisation established to reform consumer complaints and improve standards across the legal sector.
Alison started out as a lawyer, working in the courts and the voluntary sector before joining the public service in Australia. There she worked across a range of sectors: immigration policy & operations, economic development, gambling regulation & reform, health and competition policy. Alison left Australia in 2003, moving to Bangladesh, where she worked with national NGOs contributing to their strategy, advocacy and evaluation to support programmes promoting disability rights and preventing domestic violence.
Alison graduated with a combined degree in arts & law from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and completed a research masters of social policy & planning (Charles Sturt) while living and working in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and a trustee of the UK Association of Science and Discovery Centres.
Alison is the NERC observer at the board meetings; she is not an official board member.