Connecting Innovators
in Academia and Business
James Phillips
Senior Business Interaction Manager
20 November 2014
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Supporting UK Research
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Research Councils:
• Invest in excellent research
and people in the UK research
base
• Work to ensure that outputs
and outcomes from our
investments are used by
business, industry and other
users
• Engage with business, industry
and others to enable
involvement with research
Research base delivers:
• Knowledge: existing and new,
generic and specific
• Research infrastructure: data,
equipment, facilities
• National Research capabilities
• People in the research base, in
the economy and moving
between these
• Support for business initiation
and creation
RCUK Mission
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BBSRC Strategic Plan 2010-2015
Three major research priorities
Food Security
Bioenergy & Industrial Biotechnology
Bioscience for Health
Exploiting new ways of working
KE, innovation & skills
Partnerships
Three crucial underpinning themes
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New BBSRC responsive mode priority
area in Food, Nutrition and Health
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Cross-Council working in Food, Nutrition and Health
• Identification that closer and more effective working across Research
Councils is needed to foster integrative and multidisciplinary research
• Cross-Council Steering Group to develop joint strategy document and
priority areas for co-ordinated working
Future Outcomes:
• BBSRC, MRC & ESRC joint statement of vision and direction of travel
in FNH research
• More detailed BBSRC-specific strategic document
• Developing BBSRC and cross-Council activities
Future Strategy
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BBSRC working with businesses
Bioscience
Research Base Business
Strengthening and
developing BBSRC’s
links with bioscience
research users
Enabling the
bioscience research
base to respond to
industry challenges
Creating opportunities
for engagement
Supporting Collaboration with Industry
Research Industry Clubs
Skills and Knowledge Exchange
Strategic Collaboration Schemes
www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business
Collaborative Initiatives
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Research Industry Clubs
Aims • Support high quality, innovative, pre-competitive research to underpin the
UK industry in addressing significant challenges to future competitiveness
• To strengthen the research community in the areas which underpin the
long-term needs of industry through interdisciplinary research and the
provision of training
• To ensure the exchange of knowledge between the science base and
industry through effective networking leading to impact from bioscience
research base
DRINC has now begun its second phase with a further
£10M. The Research Councils and Industry will continue
to work together to fund new research from 2013 - 2015.
• £3M to be allocated through a two stage process
• Outline applications accepted from: Spring 2015
• Funding from BBSRC and potentially ESRC, EPSRC and MRC
• Research proposals should be multidisciplinary and pre-competitive
Visit the ‘Apply for Funding’ page at: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/drinc
Contact: [email protected]
Improving our understanding of diet and health
Designing Foods to
maintain &
improve health
Understanding the
relationship between
processing & nutrition
Understanding food
choice to improve health
through diet
Diet and Health Research Industry Club
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DRINC2: Company Members
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New DRINC Projects
The first projects of DRINC2 started from June 2014 onwards:
• Ian Clark (UEA): Synergistic combinations of diet-derived bioactives to
maintain joint health and prevent osteoarthritis.
• Gary Frost (Imperial): Using crop genetics to understand the importance of
dietary resistant starches for maintaining healthy glucose homeostasis
• Peter Ellis (King’s College): Impact of food processing on the blood
cholesterol-lowering effect of cereal beta-glucan
• Peter Rogers (Bristol): Nudge150: Combining small changes to foods to
achieve a sustained decrease in energy intake
• Peter Shewry (Rothamsted): Speciation and bioavailability of iron in plant
foods
• Jeremy Spencer (Reading): Mechanistic assessment of the acute and
chronic cognitive effects of flavanol/anthocyanin intervention in humans
DRINC has supported 25
research projects
• 26 centres throughout the UK
• 300 strong research community:
– 110 investigators
– 62 PDRAs
– 30 PhD Students
• Engaging with over 100
industrial participants
• Representing the whole
food value chain
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iStockPhoto © Thinkstock 2012
“As well as the cardiovascular benefits, we also have a prebiotic effect at amounts that are achievable through a moderate dietary intake of cocoa, apples, red
wine and green tea.” Prof. Jeremy Spencer, University of Reading
• Roasting delivers the distinctive aromas and
flavours associated with coffee and chocolate –
it also changes the chemical structure of
compounds within the beans themselves
• DRINC-funded researchers have investigated the
effects of processing on the bioactivity of
flavanols and their derivatives
• Professor Jeremy Spencer’s team at the
University of Reading have found that light
processing has minimal impact on the favourable
effects of cocoa flavanols on vascular function;
heavy processing seemed to abolish them
• They have also discovered the first evidence that
cocoa flavanols can have a prebiotic-like effect,
modifying the ecology of micro-organisms within
the colon in a positive way
The benefits in the bean
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© User:Editor at Large / Wikimedia Commons /
CC-BY-SA-2.5
“Our data provide the first evidence that green tea catechins can
be taken up into the skin following oral intake in human
subjects and indicate their complex skin incorporation pattern”
• A multidisciplinary research team based at
the Universities of Manchester, Bradford and
Leeds has been investigating the effects of
dietary bioactive compounds on skin health
in humans in vivo.
• A human clinical study found evidence that
oral consumption of green tea catechin
compounds can protect against sunburn and
the longer-term effects of UV damage.
• Previous pre-clinical animal studies have
shown a protective effect of green tea
against cancers of many types.
Skin Health boost from
Green Tea
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© Tim Gander
“We hope this research will lead to new ways to prevent and treat obesity either through modifying eating behaviours directly or by developing foods that encourage specific patterns of eating.” Prof. Jeff Brunstrom, Unversity of Bristol
• Decisions about portion size have a major influence on the number of calories we consume
• Researchers funded through the BBSRC-led Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC) are investigating how our expectations of satiety (how filling a food is) might be learned over time
• Professor Jeff Brunstrom’s team at the University of Bristol has developed the ‘consumer expectation toolbox’ which has been used by industry to explore the expected satiety of products, and in a clinical setting to assess food reward and expected satiety before and after gastric surgery
• They are taking forward their findings as part of a new BBSRC-funded LINK project with Nestlé
Would you like to
supersize that?
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© Tim Gander
“The DRINC study gave us the capacity to think in a big way about a project that had real scope and wasn’t limited to some smaller, rather tangible issue.” Prof. John Blundell, University of Leeds
• Funded by DRINC, Professor John Blundell’s team at the University of Leeds has developed a sophisticated research platform to identify the causes of overeating
• The study has produced findings and a degree of understanding that wouldn’t have been arrived at by looking at normal cause and effect relationships, such as the link between fat free body mass and appetite
• The team has also discovered that people respond in different ways and this has had a major effect on the way the team conducts research and interprets outcomes
• Their approach has generated interest from researchers across the globe, leading to invitations to join two EU FP7 consortia (full4health and SATIN – Satiety Innovation) which have a strong emphasis on interactions with industry
Overeating – it’s not one
size fits all
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Crop Improvement Research Club
£7M to improve the productivity and quality of wheat,
barley and oil seed rape for use in food.
CIRC launched in 2011 as a partnership between BBSRC,
a consortium of 14 companies and the Scottish Government.
15 research projects are investigating:
• Improving crop productivity to sustainably increase the volume
of food the UK can produce, while limiting the land needed and
improving resource use efficiency
• Improving crop quality to help improve the processing, safety and
nutritional value of crop products whilst also improving resource use efficiency
Improving starch quality
in wheat
• Starch is a major component of cereal
grains and its functional properties have a
significant impact on grain utilisation. In
wheat, there are two types of starch
granules called A- and B-type.
• The smaller B-type starch granules have
negative impacts on many end-uses of
wheat and barley.
• This project builds on previous work in
which researchers identified a gene
controlling the content of B-type starch
granules in a wild relative of wheat. The goal
is to identify and manipulate the gene
responsible for the control of B-granule
content Bgc-1 in wheat and barley.
At the end of the project, grain
from improved lines will be
made available for end-user
trials, including bread and
baking trials, mashing and
alcohol-yield trials. Dr Kay Trafford, NIAB
Understanding bread
quality • Bread is an essential dietary staple, and makes
significant contributions to our daily intakes of
energy, protein, fibre, minerals and vitamins.
• The quality of bread is determined by gluten
strength and the stability of the bubbles formed
in the dough. Bubble-stability controls how
dough bubbles coalesce during baking, enabling
the fine texture typical of UK sliced bread.
• While we know how to influence dough strength
by breeding varieties of wheat containing
specific gluten proteins, currently the factors
affecting bubble-stability are poorly understood.
• Prof. Peter Shewry is investigating how
endogenous wheat lipids, which account for 2-
3% of flour, influence bubble-stability and will
generate new targets for plant breeders
producing wheat varieties for bread-making.
This project brings together a
unique combination of the skills
and facilities available at
Rothamsted Research and the
Institute of Food Research. Prof. Peter Shewry, Rothamsted Research
• A partnership between BBSRC, NERC and 13 Company members – launched Spring 2014.
• £10M to provide solutions to key challenges affecting the
efficiency, productivity and sustainability of UK crop and livestock sectors
• Structured around two interlinking themes:
1. Resilient and robust crop and livestock production systems
2. Predictive capability & modelling for new technologies, tools, products and services
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Innovation Club
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£4M initiative funded by BBSRC, Defra and FSA to study Campylobacter in the
food chain, from field to plate.
The initiative funded 12 multidisciplinary projects, researching three areas:
• When does infection begin in poultry, what are the common points of
contamination, and are there stages in the process where control measures
are likely to be most effective?
• How can biocontrol of Campylobacter on farms and during processing make a
difference? What are the best approaches to biocontrol?
• What is it about the biology of the bacteria, the bird, and the interaction
between them that compounds the problem?
Strategic Collaboration Schemes Tackling Campylobacter in the Food Chain
£70m investment to support agricultural innovations:
• Taking innovative ideas from any sector or discipline
with the potential to provide an economic boost to the
UK Agri-Tech industry, by tackling challenges in
agriculture.
• £60m will be invested through InnovateUK and BBSRC.
• Department for International Development will
contribute £10m to support the transfer of technology
and new products to developing countries.
Sustainable Agriculture & Food Innovation Platform
A £90m+ programme of investment over 5 years from 2010–14
Objective: to help UK businesses develop innovative technologies,
production systems and supply chain solutions that will sustainably
increase the productivity of the UK Agri-food sector, whilst reducing its
environmental impact.
co-funded by:
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Collaborative Initiatives Enabling new connections
Science-led, responsive mode grants where
an industrial partner contributes in cash 10%
of the project cost: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/ipa
Collaborative research projects
where an industrial consortium
contributes 50%:
www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business/collab
orative-research/link/stand-alone-
link.aspx
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© Thinkstock
Under the bar: Acrylamide
and Food Safety
“Acrylamide must have been in
our diet for thousands of years,
so it is new knowledge, not a
new risk, and levels have already
been reduced as a result of that
knowledge and the response of
the food industry.”
News story: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/food-security/2013/130206-f-acrylamide-and-food-safety.aspx
Nigel Halford, Rothamsted Research
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Skills and knowledge Exchange
BBSRC supports approximately 125 PhD
studentships in collaboration with industry
each year: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/icase
Support for translation of fundamental
research to practical application in order to
maximise societal and economic benefits:
www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business/commercialisation
/follow-on.aspx
Supports people movement to exchange
knowledge, technology and skills, while
developing bioscience research and
addressing our strategic priorities:
www.bbsrc.ac.uk/flip
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Agrifood supply chain
KTP competition
• Competition budget: £2.3m including co-funding
– Comp flyer published: June 2014
– Competition close: Feb 2015
• Project duration: 2 years
• Three high-level challenges in scope:
– innovating to benefit consumer health,
wellbeing and choice
– improving productivity, resource
efficiency and resilience in the supply chain
– assuring safety and security across the supply chain
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• BBSRC funded a Knowledge Transfer
Partnership to support Elsoms Seeds and the
Warwick Crop Centre.
• The KTP project enabled the development of a
marker assisted breeding programme in parsnip
using existing knowledge from carrot.
• Facilitated the integration of marker technology
within the traditional breeding business.
• Strengthened business/academic relationship.
“This project provided us with an excellent opportunity to improve the
understanding of breeder’s needs and how we can transfer academic
knowledge to further their goals.” Graham Teakle, Warwick Crop Centre
© Elsoms Seeds Ltd
Elaine Broomfield, Team Lead Email: [email protected] James Phillips, Senior Business Interaction Manager Email: [email protected] Faith Smith, Senior Business Interaction Manager Email: [email protected]
Evangelia Kougioumoutzi, Innovation Manager Email: [email protected]
Jennifer Postles, Senior Business Interaction Manager Email: [email protected] Andy Cureton, Head of Business Interaction Unit Email: [email protected]
Agri-Food Business Interaction Team
Agri-Tech Strategy –
Catalyst and Innovation
Centres, SAF-IP, Waste
DRINC, CIRC, Crops,
Food Security
ARC, SARIC,
Aquaculture
SARIC
Agri-Tech Innovation
Centres
Agri-Food Strategic
Business Engagement