Culture

Whilst meteorological science is at the heart of the UK’s Met Office, over recent years the context that this science exists within, like many public institutions, has shifted towards an increasingly business orientation.

The fusion of science and business

Senior management within the Met Office have been keen to develop the relationship between the science and business sides of the Met Office, and to create a synthesis of the two known internally as the “Bow-tie”.

As one climate scientist we spoke to described:

“Well, it’s service driven. But, underpinned by the integrity of the science and the methods that are applied.”

These efforts to seamlessly draw together the two ends of the ‘bow-tie’ appear to have impacted the way science is imagined by some within the organisation. For example, the language used by one scientist to discuss their work was heavily shaped by a managerial discourse of “our remit... Function” and the term “climate services” was enthusiastically embraced. Similarly, a discourse of “compliance“ was evident in relation to the organisation’s relationship with government policy makers and regulators.

Efficiency was also a concern for some. When discussing the reduction of the rain gauge network by nearly 50% since the 1970s, the effectiveness and efficiency of the observing network were the primary considerations for one individual. The idea of a weather station being an important part of a local community and culture as at Sheffield Weston Park was not explored.

This suggests that as our datum enters this ‘big’ data infrastructure its socio-cultural context has shifted towards a more technocratic space that is less about people, and more about utility, functionality and economic reasoning.

Corporate identity

The Met Office’s corporate identity is central to its functioning. A variety of techniques aimed at generating and presenting a strong and cohesive identity are observable.

A strong emphasis is placed by the organisation on brand identity. Met Office colours and logos saturate public spaces and offices within the buildings.

In the two images below you can see the heavy use of the ‘swoosh’ logo on office surfaces and plant pots, and the use of banners to present a corporate identity.

The change in name to Met Office in 2000 further represents the importance placed on brand identity by the organisation.

The organisation’s public identity is also shaped by restricting the external communications of employees. Engagement with potential critics, including the press and academics, is heavily controlled by the organisation’s Press Office. This indicates a level of guardedness within the internal culture of the organisation.

Technology

Technology is at the heart of Met Office culture. Weather forecasters based in the Operations Centre can have as many as 11 computer screens to work from, and large screens display the latest updates from forecasts and social media. On the top floor of the Met Office, an impressive visualisation of the global climate is displayed on a huge spherical globe which sits in its own specially constructed alcove outside of the Hadley Centre.

Many forecasting and climate models rely on the processing power of a supercomputer – a relatively small computer that fills only a small portion of a vast, largely empty room. In 2014, the government confirmed that the Met Office will soon be acquiring a new supercomputer to further increase its processing power. The new technology will cost £97 million and the decision to fund it was subject to an extensive UK government Science and Technology Committee hearing.

The Met Office was excited by these developments and is keen to demonstrate its technological capabilities to visitors – the supercomputer is part of the official Met Office tour.

Uncertainty and vulnerability

The Met Office’s effort to build and present a strong public identity points to vulnerabilities faced by the organisation within contemporary forms of public sector governance.

The development of a corporate identity and a restricted discursive space are representative of broader trends in public sector governance that have been pushed within the UK’s public sector over the last three decades.

A strong corporate identity has become perceived as necessary to strengthen both the Met Office’s position in the commercial market place and its reputation amongst domestic and international networks of policy makers, funders, and potential collaborators.

In the case of the Met Office, the managerial impulse to control discursive space can also be understood as a response to the current vulnerability of the institution as it comes under threat from some groups of policy makers who believe some of its functions should be outsourced to private sector management companies. These issues are explored in more depth on the Met Office Policy page.

Spaces of innovation

Whilst the corporate identity of the institution is strong, we also discovered innovative projects run by small groups of scientists within the Met Office that seemed to exist both within and outside the restricted structures of their parent organisation. As one scientist described his team:

“The organisations work a bit like the Royal Navy, we work like Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Some of these projects include ACRE and WOW.

Read more about Met Office R&D projects