The Committee of Heads of Environmental Sciences (CHES) is the collective voice of the environmental sciences and related programmes in higher and further education. CHES plays a leading role in the Higher Education Environmental Science community and lobbies on their behalf.

CHES is an active networking organisation and serves to enhance the quality of outcomes for all colleagues throughout environmental education. It aims to facilitate cooperation and collaboration between relevant bodies within the UK and internationally.

We work closely with the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) and also have links with similar organisations in North America and across Europe. We are a member of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Subject Centre for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES SC) Advisory Group.

There are currently 32 university departments making up the membership of CHES. Our accreditation scheme covers 44 individual degree programmes. New members are welcome, and are not restricted to the environmental sciences. Please refer to our membership pages for details.

Key activities include:

• Accreditation scheme for environmental science higher education degree programmes in collaboration with IES
• Developing new avenues of international co-operation within the environmental science community
• Networking between university departments and linking with relevant professional bodies

LATEST NEWS & EVENTS

2012 Annual Conference and AGM
Our Annual Conference will be held on 5-6th July at the University of Southampton. The conference will feature workshop, seminar and networking events, and all the details are here. Register before 11th May to receive a 20% discount on the attendance cost. There is also a reduced cost for students from CHES Member HEIs, and travel grants are available to academic attendees from the HEA. Please contact the office if you are interested in attending, a registration form can be downloaded here.

HEA Inquiry into future of postgraduate education
The HEA has launched an independent inquiry examining the future of postgraduate education. Interested parties are encouraged to submit written evidence to the Commission. More information is available on the Commission's website, the deadline for submissions is 2nd April, with the final report being published in mid 2012.

Latest News from the Higher Education Academy
The Committee wishes to share the outcome of a recent meeting with the new Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) Discipline Lead, Dr Helen Walkington. Dr Walkington gave an interesting presentation about the direction the HEA is taking and future goals. Supplementary to this is an information sheet on HEA funding opportunities and workshops which will be of interest to all our members.