 He has also served as a Non-Executive Director of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, and served on the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young People’s Committee.He is honorary geological adviser to the John Muir Trust and in 2005 he was appointed by Scottish Ministers as a Trustee of the National Museums of Scotland, a role he continued till 2013.In 2009 he also took on the part-time position as Scientific Director of the Edinburgh Consortium for Rural Research now the Scottish Consortium for Rural Research.