Tag Archives: agriculture

New BBSRC Call: Crop-Improvement Research Club

Leave a reply

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council has announced a new £7.06M, 5-year partnership “aimed at supporting innovative and excellent research to underpin the development of improved crop varieties.” This is a collaborative venture between the BBSRC, the Scottish Government and leading companies, including BASF Plant Science Company, Monsanto, and Limagrain UK:

BBSRC: Crop-Improvement Research Club

Worldwide food security is becoming an increasingly important issue and is a major strategic priority for BBSRC. An increasing global population combined with global climate change, the potential spread of newly emerging diseases of livestock and crops, and economic issues such as the volatility of oil prices threaten global food security and an urgent response is required. To coordinate research efforts in this area we are leading the development of a food security programme together with other funders.

As a result of discussion with industry and direction from our Bioscience for Industry Strategy Panel, crop improvement has been identified as an area where increased investment in research activity would underpin the needs of the crop production and processing industry to address the challenges of climate change and food security.

To bring together industry and the research community to support research in the area of crop improvement BBSRC, the Scottish Government and industry have launched a Crop Improvement Research Club (CIRC). CIRC will support research on oilseed rape,barley and wheat and their uses in food production for humans and animals.

Focus areas for CIRC include:

  • Increasing nutrient use efficiency
  • Combating pests and diseases
  • Increasing yield potential
  • Seed structure and composition
  • Germination properties
  • Spoilage factors

This call will specifically target:

  • Wheat quality
  • Towards a step-change redesign of crops
  • Crop-soil interactions
  • Crop protection

Further information is given at the link above. In particular any potential applicants must read the Second Call Detailed information Document thoroughly to understand the specific areas to be addressed in this call.

Funding is for up to five years and significant collaboration with relevant industrial and research institutions would be expected.

This call has a two-stage application process. The deadline for outline applications is 29th June 2011 and those who are invited to submit full applications must do so by 9th November 2011.

UK Launches Major Food Research Strategy

Leave a reply

food2030-logoThe food research strategy, unveiled by the UK Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington,  involves collaboration between government departments, research councils (particularly BBSRC), industry and charities. The strategy aims to establish an “integrated community of researchers” across the UK to tackle food security and related research topics.

UK Cross-Government Food Research Strategy (PDF)

Relevant initiatives include:

  • a new multi-partner food security research programme, co-ordinated by BBSRC and delivered jointly with relevant Research Councils and government departments, and including close engagement with industry and the third sector. Key aims include strengthening research coordination and partnerships, building a more integrated community of researchers, funders and users that extends across disciplines, organisations and sectors, to provide multi-disciplinary research to ensure a sustainable and secure food system; [Section 6.6]
  • a new Technology Strategy Board led Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform, co-funded by Defra and BBSRC with up to £90M over 5 years, to fund innovative technological research and development in areas such as crop productivity, sustainable livestock production, waste reduction and management, and greenhouse gas reduction; [Section 6.6]
  • to exploit opportunities in the European Research Area through co-ordination mechanisms such as ERA-NETs and Joint Programmes, and collaboration through the Research and Technology Development (RTD) Framework Programme more generally; [Section 6.6]
  • a new BBSRC Advanced Training Partnership scheme to provide a range of specialist high level training (masters, professional doctorate and continuous professional development) to meet industry needs in partnership with the higher and further education sectors; [Section 7.4]

New University Faculty on the Repository

Leave a reply

Paul Stainthorp has just blogged about the addition of the newest faculty to the University of Lincoln’s online repository:

FAFAS are on the Institutional Repository

The faculty of Agriculture, Food and Animal Sciences amalgamates expertise at both the Riseholme and Holbeach campuses and is being officially launched today at this year’s Lincolnshire Show. As Paul mentions, a presence on the Institutional Repository is highly beneficial for both research and teaching:

Work deposited in the repository is made publicly accessible (by default), and becomes almost immediately ‘findable’ by academic search services such as Google Scholar. People searching for scholarly work in your field will be much more likely to discover your own work if it is properly described and catalogued. This ‘findability’ benefits you because analysis has shown that citation rates increase by between 25% – 250% when a paper is deposited in an open-access Institutional Repository.

We’ll be saying lots more about the repository in the coming months, including offering hands on sessions for staff on depositing items and copyright/IP issues. One of the reasons for making work accessible via the repository is that citation metrics will be a factor in judging research quality in the forthcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF), the next RAE.