Member Profiles
21 February 2025
Richard Fortey OBE FRSB on an incredible career at the Natural History Museum and Dr Belinda Clarke OBE FRSB CBiol on her work as director of not-for-profit membership organisation Agri-TechE
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Dr Belinda Clarke OBE FRSB CBiol on her work as director of Agri-TechE, a not-for-profit agri-tech membership organisation
My alarm goes off…
At about 5:30. My first job is to go and feed my animals (an alpaca and two sheep) and walk my dog. My natural circadian rhythm gives me ‘lark’ tendencies, so I’m often at my desk by 7:30, when I do my best work.
My work is…
Across the agri-tech innovation ecosystem in the UK and internationally. Agri-TechE brings together innovators from academia and industry with farmers and growers who are all committed to tackling pressing issues facing agri-food with technology.
I work with…
A hugely diverse group of our members. One day I might be at a university or research institute, the next day I could be at a vertical farm, and the next looking at an anaerobic digester or some crop-harvesting robots. It’s a cliché, but every day really is different – and demands different clothing and footwear!
On a typical day…
We have our team catch-up every morning – we started this during lockdown to stay connected and still use it to pick up daily issues. After that I might head off to meet some Agri-TechE members at their premises or possibly jump on the train to London for discussions with policymakers around agri-tech innovation. Or we might be running a networking event – we host both in-person and online activities.
Right now I am…
Planning our events programme for 2025, thinking about topics that will inspire farmers to adopt new solutions and have a strong innovation and technology lens. The industry is currently getting to grips with how tech solutions will help farmers deliver their environmental goals, so we’re putting together an event to help everyone understand the opportunities.
I also have some advisory and board roles – for example, I sit on the agricultural advisory board of a biogas company and I am a member of the Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee.
After work…
I love to walk. A few years ago I discovered the joys of long-distance walking with some brilliant friends – we walked Peddars Way in Norfolk and regularly get together to stride through our stresses. It’s a good metaphor for life – if things are getting tough, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, repeat and, before you know it, you’re in a different place.
THE CAREER LADDER
Richard Fortey OBE FRSB on his long career at the Natural History Museum
I first discovered biology…
As a youngster, accompanying my father on his trout fishing trips. I tried to learn as much as I could about the natural world, but never became a proficient fisherman.
I studied…
Natural Sciences at Cambridge. We had to choose specialities, and I was as attracted to geology as I was to biology. I was drawn particularly to palaeontology as it was a hybrid between the two subjects I was most interested in.
I always knew…
That I would be suited to some sort of academic career. The pivotal moment happened when I joined the Cambridge University Spitsbergen Expedition. While I was in the Arctic I discovered a fantastic and entirely unknown sequence of Ordovician rocks crammed with fossils, including trilobites. With that, I had a PhD topic drop into my lap and in Cambridge Professor Harry Whittington (the authority on trilobites) a ready-made supervisor.
When a job opened up at the Natural History Museum (NHM) I was lucky enough to fit the job description and it provided my base for the next four decades.
The best thing about my job…
Was the comparative freedom I had to pursue my own lines of research. There wasn’t the pressure then to secure research grants, because the government funded the NHM as a Civil Service institution. Occasionally, the formalities of a government position could be irksome and I actually took a year out as a visiting professor in Canada.
I started…
Writing popular science books in the 1980s, in my own time, but this became more important in the 1990s and beyond. My breakthrough book was one explaining the geological underlay of Britain and how it affected everything from scenery to industry (The Hidden Landscape, 1993). Next, I wrote my bestseller, a history of evolution called Life: An Unauthorised Biography. More books followed – including on trilobites (Trilobite!) and the Natural History Museum (Dry Store Room No 1) – and my writing was recognised by the Royal Society when it awarded me its Michael Faraday Medal in 2006.
Not many of my colleagues will know…
I have kept my boyhood interest in fungi alive and I am president of the Fungus Survey of Oxfordshire and lead regular fungus walks. My most recent book, Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind, reveals more about my double life.
A key piece of advice would be…
That persistence is probably as important as anything else in a scientific career. I think the employment scene has become even more precarious over the last two decades and so ‘hanging in there’ is a great quality to have.
Also, I think if I lived my life again, I probably wouldn’t have avoided responsibility so diligently. I would have liked to have been able to do more to stop the decline in opportunities for young biologists interested in taxonomy and biodiversity. My books likely helped spread the word, but I could have done more.
