BBSRC Strategically
Supported Institutes

A portfolio of vibrant, dynamic and diverse bioscience national capabilities with deep connections across the research and innovation ecosystem.

Introduction

As the UK’s major public funder of bioscience research and innovation, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is responsible for the long-term investment of substantial public funds in strategically supported research institutes.

As well as providing leadership and expertise in vital areas of research, the eight institutes that BBSRC supports also play a key role in driving the vision and core themes outlined in BBSRC’s Institute Strategy, namely:

·       Capability: delivering world-class research with socio-economic impact
·       Connectivity: forging connections through collaboration, coordination and communication
·       Culture: beacons of best practice for improving research culture

To ensure all eight institutes continue to make a significant contribution to the bioscience research and innovation system, every five years BBSRC conducts an Institute Assessment Exercise (IAE).

Following the most recent IAE in 2022, BBSRC is investing more than £376 million in its strategically supported institutes over the next five years.

Funding is provided through a series of institute strategic programmes grants (ISPGs) as well as through investment in the institutes’ core capabilities.

While seven of BBSRC’s eight strategically supported institutes participated in the IAE 2022, Babraham Institute’s was deferred by one year to enable the appointment of a new Institute Director. Babraham Institute will participate in a separate, though identical, IAE in 2023.

Scroll down to find out more about BBSRC’s strategically supported institutes and the research programmes they are delivering with BBSRC funding.

Babraham Institute

Advancing research for lifelong health

Babraham Institute undertakes fundamental research to ensure lifelong health and address the challenge of an ageing global population. The knowledge created from the Institute’s research advances our understanding of human biology, accelerating translational research through research commercialisation and collaborative partnerships and ultimately shaping healthcare interventions.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

*The ISPGs listed for Babraham Institute are supported by funding from BBSRC’s previous IAE in 2017.

Epigenetics in development and ageing

Epigenetic mechanisms are fundamental to how our genes are controlled in development and over the life course, providing a critical interface between the environment, diet, cell signalling and genome function.

This programme is exploring how our epigenome is established from conception, changes as we age and in response to our environment and lifestyle. Through this work, Babraham Institute is identifying novel pathways and biomarkers of healthy ageing.

Molecular mechanisms underpinning healthy ageing

This programme is enhancing our understanding of the biological processes in the body that play key roles in keeping us healthy throughout the full life course.

A more thorough understanding of the molecular and systems level principles by which cells and organisms sense and adapt to challenges, such as nutrient shortage or excess, infection, ageing and damage, is allowing for tailored interventions to protect and restore health.

Understanding the immune system to extend health span

A greater understanding of immunity is essential in helping to improve vaccines, combat autoimmune diseases, limit inflammation, develop new immunotherapies and secure lifelong health.

This programme is examining the biological mechanisms that control the development and function of our immune system with a particular focus on identifying interventions to counteract the decline in the immune system observed with age.

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Neutrophils, a type of immune cell which forms a critical part of our body’s immune system, spreading, polarising and migrating across a glass surface. Credit: Babraham Institute

Neutrophils, a type of immune cell which forms a critical part of our body’s immune system, spreading, polarising and migrating across a glass surface. Credit: Babraham Institute

Life in the lab at Babraham Institute. Credit: Babraham Institute

Life in the lab at Babraham Institute. Credit: Babraham Institute

Earlham Institute

Decoding living systems

Anglia Innovation Partnership – Norwich Research Park. Credit: Earlham Institute

Anglia Innovation Partnership – Norwich Research Park. Credit: Earlham Institute

Edyta Wojtowicz, Earlham Institute Group Leader, examining a well plate. Credit: Earlham Insitute

Edyta Wojtowicz, Earlham Institute Group Leader, examining a well plate. Credit: Earlham Insitute

The Earlham Institute works to understand life on Earth through genomics and data science, pioneering multidisciplinary research and developing the tools and technology needed to translate genomes into new discoveries and innovation.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Cellular Genomics (CELLGEN)

Lead Institute: Earlham Institute
Programme Partners: Quadram Institute, University of Cambridge, The Alan Turing Institute
Key Strategic Partners: UK Health Security Agency, Plant Cell Atlas, WorldFish, Tropic, Oxford Nanopore, PacBio, IBM Research, EMBL-EBI, ELIXIR, UC Davis, Google Cloud, Eagle Genomics

Animal bodies and plants are composed of billions of cells. These cells vary in terms of their function, structure and genome. CELLGEN aims to understand how genomic variation from cell to cell is important for the fitness of the organism and its role in responding to challenges from the environment.

While previous research has primarily looked at genomic variation in the context of disease, such as cancer, CELLGEN is looking at genomic variation in healthy systems.

Using our expertise in single-cell genomics, this programme is moving our understanding of healthy ageing beyond model organisms, to guiding climate-resilient crop breeding programmes while addressing key challenges in data storage, curation and sharing.

Earlham Institute is also delivering advanced training across its software, tools and technology platforms to upskill the wider life sciences research community.

Decoding Biodiversity (DECODE)

Lead Institute: Earlham Institute
Programme Partners: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), Quadram Institute, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Key Strategic Partners: IBM Research, Elsoms, Eagle Genomics, CIMMYT, CIAT, IRRI, WorldFish, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore

Technological advances mean it is now possible to generate high quality assembled genomes cheaply and at scale, with global initiatives generating reference genomes for increasing numbers of species.

DECODE is bridging the critical gap that turns large genome collections into new knowledge and discoveries. Earlham Institute is developing new tools to harness the large-scale genomic and metagenomic collections, linking them with other forms of digital data.

The programme is identifying the genetic basis underlying agriculturally relevant traits in crop and aquaculture species, including disease and environmental resilience, to address challenges of food security and sustainable agriculture.

DECODE is also developing technologies for ‘in-field’ and ‘in-situ’ genomic analysis, enabling the development of both gut microbiome and soil health indicators, and unlocking the potential of plants for sustainable biosynthesis of novel bioactive molecules.

All software and tools are open access and new advanced training courses are addressing key skills gaps among the UK research community in computational biology.

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Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS)

Breeding resilient crops

IBERS convenes a unique group of grassland and plant breeding scientists, state-of-the-art research facilities, robust stakeholder relationships and collaborative industry networks with one clear vision in mind; to ensure that humanity can sustainably produce the food, animal feed and plant based industrial resources it needs, both now and in the future.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Resilient Crops

Lead Institute: IBERS
Programme Partners: Earlham Institute
Key Strategic Partners: Germinal, Senova, Terravesta

Resilient Crops is addressing the dual challenges of sustainable production and climate change through its work on four crops:

·       the forage grass, perennial ryegrass
·       the forage legume, clover
·       the energy grass, miscanthus
·       the cereal, oats

The research is addressing the challenge of climate change by studying the traits needed for future agricultural resilience and understanding how to produce sustainable biomass to achieve the Government’s net zero targets.

Over the next five years, this programme of work and allied plant breeding research relating to all four crops will contribute bio-based solutions to the following grand challenges:

  • making agricultural production more sustainable through greater cropping diversity, improved nutrient utilisation and with less reliance on imported protein and inorganic fertilisers
  • moving farming to net zero by reducing the environmental impact of, and greenhouse gas emissions from, livestock
  • increasing the greenhouse gas removal potential of miscanthus grass
  • closing the productivity gap through improvements in crop yield and yield resilience
  • developing tools, including genomic prediction, to accelerate plant breeding research and using phenomics to better understand genotype by environmental interactions
  • using biorefineries to diversify the products we can obtain from plant material, including through the co-production of food and non-food products from crops and crop residues

Through IBERS’ research, an opportunity exists for a renaissance in agriculture and the development of a bioeconomy that tackles climate change while creating new industries and jobs within both rural and urban economies.

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National Plant Phenomics Centre, IBERS, Prifysgol Aberystwyth University. Credit: IBERS

National Plant Phenomics Centre, IBERS, Prifysgol Aberystwyth University. Credit: IBERS

Prifysgol Aberystwyth University. Credit: IBERS

Prifysgol Aberystwyth University. Credit: IBERS

John Innes Centre (JIC)

Exploring plant and microbial diversity

Purple tomato fruit genetically engineered to produce anthocyanins. Credit: John Innes Centre

Purple tomato fruit genetically engineered to produce anthocyanins. Credit: John Innes Centre

Brassica plants during the tissue culture process of the gene editing process. Credit: John Innes Centre

Brassica plants during the tissue culture process of the gene editing process. Credit: John Innes Centre

JIC seeks to optimise sustainable plant productivity and advance microbe utilisation by conducting world-leading research that benefits plants, people and planet.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Advancing Plant Health

Lead Institute: John Innes Centre
Programme Partners: The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia

Productivity of global crops such as brassica, potato, pea and cereals are threatened by major issues, such as nutrient deficiency and plant disease.

By defining the molecular mechanisms involved in plant interactions with pathogens, pests and beneficial microbes, this programme is enhancing crop resilience and sustainable agricultural productivity by reducing chemical inputs such as pesticides and nitrogen fertiliser.

It is also capitalising on advances in plant genomics and genetics, bioimaging, biochemistry, structure-function analyses and AI to drive the UK’s ambition towards a fossil fuel-free farming future.

Delivering Sustainable Wheat

Lead Institute: John Innes Centre
Programme Partners: Earlham Institute, Quadram Institute, Rothamsted Research, Imperial College London, Lancaster University, National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), University of Bristol, University of Leeds, University of Nottingham

Despite being one of the ‘big three’ world staples alongside maize and rice and the major UK crop, wheat is not being exploited to its full potential. This work is contributing to a sustainable supply of nutritious wheat for a carbon efficient farming future, underpinning lasting global food security.

The research will help build future wheat that is designed to be:

  • climate resilient
  • nitrogen fertiliser efficient
  • carbon sequestering
  • disease resistant
  • ready for new diseases
  • benefitting from highly specific plant protection products
  • rich in minerals like zinc, iron, calcium, magnesium and dietary fibre

Building Robustness in Crops

Lead Institute: John Innes Centre
Programme Partners: NIAB
Key Strategic Partners: Rothamsted Research, KWS, Limagrain, The Alan Turing Institute

Climate change challenges crop production and our ability to produce sufficient high-quality food alongside reliable farm incomes.  We must use less land for production to meet our biodiversity and carbon sequestration targets and exploit new opportunities in protected horticulture to reduce our reliance of vegetable imports and improve our health.

Working alongside industry, this programme is using interdisciplinary approaches to deliver genetic diversity and knowledge, innovative technologies and training to allow sustainable production of robust high-yielding and economically important crops, including oilseed crops such as rape and high-protein crops such as pea, cereals and brassica vegetables.

Harnessing Biosynthesis for Sustainable Food and Health

Humanity faces unprecedented challenges in the linked areas of food security and human health. This programme harnesses the remarkable and under-exploited biosynthetic capabilities of plants and microbes to make valuable new molecules to address these global challenges.

By precisely editing molecular and macromolecular structures, the programme optimises the properties and functionality of molecules to enable improvements to the nutritional quality of food, develop more sustainable agricultural practices and provide new therapeutics and antibiotics to support a healthy human lifespan across society.

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The Pirbright Institute

Controlling viral diseases

The Pirbright Institute is a world-leading centre of excellence in research and surveillance of virus diseases of farm animals and viruses that spread from animals to humans. The Institute works to enhance the UK’s capability to contain, control and eliminate these economically and medically important diseases through highly innovative fundamental and applied bioscience.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Virus Life Cycles at Multiple Scales

Lead Institute: The Pirbright Institute
Key Strategic Partners: Diamond Light Source, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, University of Surrey, Royal Veterinary College, The Roslin Institute

This programme is:

  • gaining essential knowledge about the life cycles of severe viruses
  • developing new ways to weaken viruses and use them as vaccines
  • studying how different viruses that infect the same host compete and evolve

It is also investigating how virus-host interactions control species-specific pathology and how viruses overcome barriers to species jumping, thus enabling us to:

  • better predict the large scale spread of viruses
  • better understand how climate change affects spread
  • produce risk scenarios pertinent to the UK

The programme is also providing an international hub for veterinary, zoonotic and ‘One Health’ studies of viral disease.

Host Responses to Viral Infection

Lead Institute: The Pirbright Institute
Key Strategic Partners: The Roslin Institute, Babraham Institute, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Diamond Light Source, The University of Liverpool

By building on previous findings and linking them with recent advances in the field, this work is addressing an urgent scientific need to better understand why host responses to viral infection can lead to disease with little protection.

It is also helping to establish why, in many cases, host responses to viral infection or vaccination are not broadly protective and often short-lived.

This programme is aiding the improvement of vaccine efficacy while developing a more complete understanding of vaccine platform applicability across hosts.

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Cell infected with Foot and Mouth Disease (red). Credit: The Pirbright Institute

Cell infected with Foot and Mouth Disease (red). Credit: The Pirbright Institute

African Buffalo. Credit: The Pirbright Institute

African Buffalo. Credit: The Pirbright Institute

Quadram Institute

Promoting health through food and microbes

Quadram Institute aerial image. Credit: Quadram Institute

Quadram Institute aerial image. Credit: Quadram Institute

Microscopy image of PulseON® flour showing starch, stained blue, inside intact chickpea cells. Credit: Quadram Institute

Microscopy image of PulseON® flour showing starch, stained blue, inside intact chickpea cells. Credit: Quadram Institute

Quadram Institute’s mission is to deliver healthier lives through innovation in gut health, microbiology and food. A major UK national capability, Quadram Institute plays a key role in transforming the food system to increase the availability of safe and nutritious food and enhance lifelong physical and mental health.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Food, Microbiome and Health

Lead Institute: Quadram Institute
Programme Partners: Earlham Institute, Imperial College London, University of East Anglia, University of Surrey
Key Strategic Partners: EIT Food, World Health Organization, Wellcome Trust, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital

Annually, poor diet accounts for 10 million (22%) of all adult deaths worldwide. It represents an annual cost of approximately £6 billion to the NHS.

Plant-based foods can be deficient in essential nutrients, leading to a lack of key micronutrients. There is an urgent need to develop new foods that:

  • improve metabolic and gut health
  • tackle the societal challenge of poor diets low in plant-based foods
  • optimise nutrient bioavailability of plant-based diets.

The Food, Microbiome and Health programme focuses on the relationships between plant-based foods and human health, through integration of nutrition and agri-food science, and understanding gastrointestinal tract function/role of the microbiome within and beyond the gastrointestinal tract.

Using this knowledge, the programme is developing and trailing new plant-based food and microbiome-based intervention strategies to increase healthy human lifespans.

Microbes and Food Safety

Lead Institute: Quadram Institute
Programme Partners: Oxford Brookes University, Royal Veterinary College, University of Cambridge
Key Strategic Partners: Food Standards Agency, UK Health Security Agency, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Every year there are 2.4 million cases of foodborne illness reported in the UK. This represents an annual cost of £9 billion to the UK economy.

Furthermore, up to 50% of the food produced globally is not consumed. Microbes are responsible for up to 25% of food spoilage and cause a significant negative impact right across the global food chain.

The Microbes and Food Safety programme is seeking to reduce human foodborne illness through improved food safety and reduce food waste due to microbial spoilage.

It is achieving this by:

  • using genomics to create tools to provide flexible and robust identification of food safety risks that exist and evolve as complex microbial communities
  • providing the evidence base to address current and emerging microbial threats to food safety and security
  • acting as an interdisciplinary innovation hub, uniting partners with diverse skills and perspectives from across the food chain ecosystem to translate research findings into industry, academia and policy.

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The Roslin Institute

Pioneering animal bioscience

The Roslin Institute aims to achieve sustainable agriculture, control diseases and enhance health through pioneering animal bioscience.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Genes and Traits for Healthy Animals

Lead Institute: The Roslin Institute
Key Strategic Partners: INRAE (the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment) and FAANG (Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes) consortium, Earlham Institute, the University of Edinburgh

Farmed animals play a vital role in global food security and animal protein aids our physical and cognitive development. Demand continues to rise owing to population growth, however some aspects of agriculture harm the environment, for example through greenhouse gas emissions and negative impact on habitat biodiversity.

Selective breeding has greatly enhanced the performance and welfare of farmed animals, and further gains can be achieved. Future farming needs to achieve the right balance of gain and impact.

This programme focuses on key terrestrial and aquatic farmed animals and aims to understand how genetic variation between animals affects their biology and interactions with their environment.

It is underpinned by studies on how animal genomes are organised, expressed and regulated, as well as by research on how cells, tissues and body systems develop and function through life.

The programme is acting as a hub for collaboration with the wider research and innovation system in the genetics underpinning precision breeding of animals and coordinating research on the functional annotation of animal genomes.

Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases

Lead Institute: The Roslin Institute
Key Strategic Partners: EPIC (Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks), EBRC (Easter Bush Research Consortium), Quadram Institute, The Pirbright Institute, the University of Edinburgh

The global scale of animal production is vast, and demand for meat continues to rise with population growth and urbanisation. In low- and middle-income countries, pastoral farming of animals helps alleviate hunger, malnutrition and poverty.

Infectious diseases remain a major impediment to animal production and welfare. The challenges are growing as infectious agents evolve to become resistant to drugs and evade vaccines.

This programme is helping reduce the burden of infectious animal diseases and the health threat they pose to humans by improving their detection, treatment and prevention.

It is building our understanding of the basis of heritable resistance and resilience of farmed animals to diseases and defining the basis of natural and vaccine-mediated immunity.

It is also studying how pathogens evolve and cause disease, and how diseases and drug resistance spread in populations.

The programme is acting as a hub for collaborative research and stakeholder engagement, including via coordination of networks for veterinary vaccinology, virology and epidemiology.

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The Roslin Institute building. Credit: The Roslin Institute

The Roslin Institute building. Credit: The Roslin Institute

Roslin chick in lab. Credit: Norrie Russell/The Roslin Institute

Roslin chick in lab. Credit: Norrie Russell/The Roslin Institute

Rothamsted Research

Connecting lab to field to farm

LED and sodium lighting in a Rothamsted Research glasshouse. Credit: Rothamsted Research

LED and sodium lighting in a Rothamsted Research glasshouse. Credit: Rothamsted Research

A Rothamsted Research team member using the Field Scanalyzer. Credit: Rothamsted Research

A Rothamsted Research team member using the Field Scanalyzer. Credit: Rothamsted Research

Rothamsted Research is internationally recognised for its unique research and innovation in arable and grazing livestock systems. Its vision is to undertake cutting-edge science that generates new knowledge with wide-ranging applications to meet current and future agricultural challenges.

BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grants

Growing Health: Bio-Inspired Solutions for Healthier Agroecosystems

UK agroecosystems must maximise natural co-benefits for society when delivering sufficient, high-quality produce.

This programme is developing and expanding ‘One Health’ values to better understand the trade-offs and co-benefits of improved crop and soil health, and agroecosystem health and function, at multiple scales.

The research is:

  • aiding the development of diversified farming practices to maintain crop/forage productivity and quality by reducing insect pest, pathogen and weed pressures while improving soil, water and air quality through reduced nutrient losses
  • in diverse and lower input conditions, developing bio-inspired interventions that reduce insect pest, pathogen and weed pressures and improving nutrient provisioning while protecting the environment.

Resilient Farming Futures

Lead Institute: Rothamsted Research
Key Strategic Partners: UK Met Office, Catchment Sensitive Farming Initiative

Agroecosystems deliver goods and services but face unprecedented abiotic and biotic stresses. There is insufficient understanding of which stress combinations disrupt ‘resilience’ most.

This programme is developing multi-scale systems understanding of single and compound stress impacts to embed resilience in UK agriculture by:

  • understanding the impact of future single and compound climate, policy and biotic stresses on agroecosystem resilience
  • detecting agroecosystem ‘resilience’ using novel data science methods
  • developing digital platforms that support national resilience through systems adaptations.

Green Engineering for Knowledge-Based Delivery of Sustainable Products in Plants

Lead Institute: Rothamsted Research
Key Strategic Partners: John Innes Centre, Yield 10, University of Nebraska, Washington State University

This is an integrated programme of discovery science and translational activities co-designed to deliver the sustainable supply of high value lipid and aromatic products in crops.

These products will contribute to health and nutrition areas of the bioeconomy as well as sustainable agriculture, chemical and energy industries.

The research is employing a broad range of experimental and data science approaches in a gene-to-field programme to engineer a new portfolio of products supported by market and feasibility analysis.

Rothamsted Research’s dedicated field trial capability is delivering robust validation of candidate traits while de-risking nascent commercial enterprises and informing government policy on UK plant biotechnology, including the role of gene editing in agriculture.

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