Cave & Karst Science

The British Cave Research Association (BCRA) is a speleological organisation in the United Kingdom. Its object is to promote the study of caves and associated phenomena, and it attains this by supporting cave and karst research, encouraging original exploration (both in the UK and on expeditions overseas), collecting and publishing speleological information, maintaining a library and organising educational and scientific conferences and meetings.

BCRA is a registered charity in the UK, and a constituent body of the British Caving Association (BCA), undertaking charitable activities on behalf of BCA.

The BCRA arose from a merger in 1973 of the British Speleological Association (BSA) and the Cave Research Group of Great Britain (CRG). When, later, the National Caving Association (NCA) was formed, BCRA became one of its constituent bodies. Although NCA was recognised as the governing body for UK caving by the Sports Council it did not allow individual membership and so BCRA was seen by many as de facto the national body. This situation was resolved in 2005 when NCA was dissolved and a new body, the British Caving Association took over NCA's function as the governing body for UK caving (as recognised by the Sports Council). BCA consolidated various of the 'national body' services formerly provided by NCA and BCRA. At the start of 2006, a new membership structure limited BCRA membership to BCA members, who now pay a supplement to join BCRA.

Having passed on most of its functions to BCA, BCRA is now able to focus entirely on cave science, technology and heritage matters; the latter involving the cataloguing of the vast amount of library and archive material that BCRA has collected over the years.

One of BCRA's main activities is publishing. It publishes the periodical Cave and Karst Science (three issues per year) and the annual BCRA Review. The BCRA Review replaces Speleology, which was published from 2003 to 2014, as BCRA's Bulletin. Prior to 2003, Speleology was published under the title Caves & Caving.

BCRA also publishes the Cave Studies series of booklets and manages various Special Interest Groups that also publish material, notably the Cave Radio & Electronics Group Journal.

In 2013 BCRA published the first volume of a major work, Caves and Karst of the Yorkshire Dales, edited by Tony Waltham and David Lowe. Volume 2 is scheduled to be published in 2017 and some chapters are already available online.

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