Annex 2
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
The BBSRC regards its sponsored institutes as
essential to the lifeblood of the UK's biotechnology and biological
sciences research base. The institutes provide the facility for
long term research, be it a 150 year long crop experiment or work
with dangerous pathogens, in a way that is very difficult for
universities to deliver. BBSRC's commitment to its sponsored institutes
is set out in the recently published Science and Innovation
in BBSRC-sponsored Institutes. (http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/pub/policy/institutes.html).
Funding
The BBSRC continues to fund its sponsored institutes
at increasing levels decided by Council in line with Spending
Review settlements, institute reviews and strategic need. In 2000-01
the institutes received £85 million from BBSRC, in 2005-06
it was £105 million.
DEFRA
Most BBSRC-sponsored institutes have been funded
in partnership with DEFRA (previously MAFF) since the Rothschild
settlement in the 1970s. Currently only three of the seven BBSRC-sponsored
institutes have significant funding from DEFRA and this is falling
drastically, leading to redundancies which have to be funded from
the Science Budget.
BBSRC is anxious to agree collaborative funding
arrangements with DEFRA which meet the principles and recommendations
of the 2004 report of the Research Council Institute and Public
Sector Research Establishment Sustainability Study Steering Group
(the RIPSS report).
BBSRC looks forward to the outcome of DEFRA's
consultation on its Evidence and Innovation Strategy (launched
in February 2005), and OSI's review of DEFRA science, launched
in January 2005 and guided by a Steering Committee chaired by
the Chief Scientific Advisor (http://www.ost.gov.uk/policy/sciencereview/defra.htm).
The future
BBSRC Council re-emphasised its commitment to
the BBSRC-sponsored institutes with a four year funding settlement
in February 2006, designed to reinforce the world class science
carried out at the institutes, and involving:
— increased funding for animal health
and welfare with a £35 million investment in a new build
to house the world renowned Roslin Institute (RI) and Institute
for Animal Health (IAH) Neuropathogenesis Unit in partnership
with the University of Edinburgh, focused on the vet school;
— strengthening the IAH at its Compton
and Pirbright sites including a £121 million new build at
Pirbright for animal infectious disease work;
— looking to optimise work in sustainable
agriculture and land use at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental
Research (IGER) and Rothamsted Research (RRes) in the light of
falling funding from DEFRA;
— significantly increased core grant
funding to the Babraham Institute (BI) in Cambridge and the John
Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich;
— plans for capital investments of
at least £50 million pa over the next four years.
BACKGROUND
(i) The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK's principal funder of basic
and strategic research across the biosciences. It is funded primarily
by the Science Budget of the Office of Science and Innovation
(OSI, Department of Trade and Industry); and is part of the Research
Council UK (RCUK) partnership.
(ii) BBSRC is allocated around £380
million through the Science Budget, which it uses to fund research
through a range of mechanisms as illustrated in Annex 1.
(iii) BBSRC invests around £340 million
in research each year, approximately one third of which supports
seven research institutes (listed at Annex 2).
(iv) BBSRC's funding to its institutes
includes core strategic grants, reviewed every four or five years,
and competitive grant funding.
(v) Each of the institutes is supported
from several other sources, including:
— other government departments,
principally DEFRA;
— government agencies, particularly
the Food Standards Agency;
Institute sources of income for
2005-06 are shown in Annex 3.
(vi) The BBSRC-sponsored institutes currently
have a total of c 2,700 staff, and have an annual turnover of
approximately £150 million, with assets and facilities worth
£500 million.
(vii) BBSRC welcomes this opportunity to
contribute to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's
inquiry into RCIs. The remainder of this submission will address
the particular issues set out in the call for evidence.
1. ROLE OF
RCIS IN MAINTAINING
THE UK RESEARCH
AND SKILLS
BASE
1.1. BBSRC recognises the important role
of RCIs within the UK research and skills base. Institutes can
be the most effective means of sustaining that base in circumstances
where they provide some or all of the following:
— critical mass of research capability
and expertise in a significant area of research;
— a national capability and source
of advice to government in strategically important research areas;
— an environment which facilitates
coordinated, multidisciplinary approaches to research;
— an appropriate environment for long-term
research programmes, long-term survey, monitoring and/or data
management work;
— scientific career paths and opportunities;
— unique research facilities or services;
— large scale capital equipment, with
skilled technical support staff.
1.2. Each of the BBSRC-sponsored institutes
currently contributes to the UK research and skills base in some
or all of the above ways. Their research focuses in three main
strategic areas: sustainable agriculture and land use; animal
health and welfare; and biomedical research (including diet and
food) (see the BBSRC institutes science and innovation strategy—(http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/pub/policy/institutes.html).
For example:
— the JIC is a world class centre of
excellence in plant, crop and related microbial science at a time
when university departments on plant science are decreasing or
have closed. The JIC is a key to maintaining the health of plant
sciences in the UK;
— the IAH provides key infrastructure
and expertise for research into both exotic and endemic diseases
of farm animals and is currently developing, with the Veterinary
Laboratory Agency, a new purpose built laboratory at Pirbright
for the study of exotic viral diseases such as foot and mouth;
— RRes has internationally unique data
on crop and soil science extending back over 160 years, vital
resources in understanding the long-term impacts of agricultural
practices and environmental variation;
— IGER has unique field-scale facilities
to study the movements of nutrients and pollutants through livestock-based
land use systems and to model their impacts on soil, water and
atmosphere;
— RI hosts ARK-Genomics, a national,
collaborative centre which provides a key resource for UK scientists
working on farm animals;
— BI has focused capability in cell
biology, particularly cell communication and signalling, and gene
regulation; it has built up a strong knowledge transfer programme
and hosts a highly successful bioincubator, with laboratory and
office space for bio-based companies as they develop;
— the Institute of Food Research (IFR)
is planning to integrate research on nutrition and the GI tract
and relate these to the structure/composition of food;
— BBSRC institute scientists play a
significant role advising government through their roles on advisory
committees and working groups for example for DEFRA, the Food
Standards Agency, the Department of Health and the DTI.
1.3 Land-based studies has recently been
identified as a vulnerable subject. BBSRC is currently working
with others on an audit of land-based research facilities, to
inform the organisation and funding of future facilities, many
of which are at RCIs, including IGER, RRes and the Natural Environment
Research Council's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
2. BALANCE BETWEEN
RESEARCH COUNCIL
EXPENDITURE ON
RCIS AND ON
GRANT FUNDING
2.1 The BBSRC Council sets the overall strategic
direction for funding at the start of each Spending Review period
and makes decisions within this to commit the BBSRC's Science
Budget funding. In the context of Spending Review periods, BBSRC
Council sets the sponsored institutes' budgets every four or five
years, taking account of current and potential Spending Review
allocations. Funds are allocated across several categories. The
complete portfolio of BBSRC funding is:
— Competitive Responsive Mode Research
Grants.
— Competitive Research Initiatives.
— Competitive Studentships and Fellowships.
— Equipment and Facilities.
— Institute Core Strategic Grant (CSG).
— Headquarters Administration.
These funding mechanisms are used to implement
the BBSRC's Delivery Plan (http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/pub/policy/delivery.html).
2.2 BBSRC Council's decisions on the level
of CSG funding are informed by an Institute Assessment Exercise
(IAE) undertaken every four or five years and Council takes long
term funding decisions for the following review period. The most
recent IAE reported in January 2006 with Council taking decisions
in February 2006 to set the BBSRC's core contributions to the
institutes for the 2006-07 to 2009-10 period. In taking its decisions
in February 2006 BBSRC Council took account of:
— the quality of the individual institute's
scientific performance in the IAE—(http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/pub/reports/06_feb_visitinggroups.html);
— the role of the individual institute
in delivering the BBSRC's 10 year Institute Science and Innovation
Strategy—(http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/pub/policy/institutes.html);
— the scientific and financial sustainability
of the institute.
2.3 For responsive mode grants, research
initiatives, and studentships and fellowships the funding received
by each BBSRC-sponsored institute is determined solely by its
performance in open competition with universities and other research
organisations. The institute's total research funding from BBSRC
comprises its funding through these competitions together with
the CSG. In this way the BBSRC is able to ensure that its sponsored
institutes have secure funding for long term research whilst also
being exposed to the rigours of open competition for a sizeable
proportion of their research funding.
2.4 Annex 1 demonstrates that the BBSRC-sponsored
institutes have received increasing CSG funding in recent years;
total funding from the BBSRC has risen from £85 million in
2000-01 to £105 million in 2005-06. Over the next four years
resource allocations (excluding capital) will rise by £13
million.
3. RATIONALE
BEHIND DIFFERENT
APPROACHES ADOPTED
BY RESEARCH
COUNCILS TO
SUPPORTING RCIS AND
THE CASE
FOR GREATER
HARMONISATION OF
PRACTICE
3.1 BBSRC's approach to governance follows
from the Prior Options review of the early 1990s and was endorsed
by Government. The recent review by the OST/OSI (http://www.dti.gov.uk/science/page23610.html)
of RCIs demonstrated that a range of governance models is adopted
by Research Councils to support their institutes. In the BBSRC's
case all the sponsored institutes were or became companies limited
by guarantee with charitable status. The BBSRC is the employer
of all the staff at the sponsored institutes with resulting liabilities,
except for the JIC whose staff are employed by the Centre under
BBSRC terms and conditions. Each institute has a Governing Body
which fulfils the functions of a board of trustees under charity
law and a board under company law. The OSI review stated that:
"The BBSRC has quite correctly been working
with its sponsored institutes in line with the findings from the
earlier Review"
The BBSRC has responded to the OSI review by
asking Professor Sir Brian Follett FRS to bring forward recommendations
to the BBSRC Council (in October 2006) on the best way to improve
both the governance per se and to take account of the sustainability
problems related to the current size of institutes.
3.2 Unlike other Research Councils, all
the BBSRC-sponsored institutes receive funding from multiple sources.
This is in part due to a Government policy change in the 1970s
when some funding from the Science Budget to the Agricultural
Research Council was transferred to the Ministry for Agriculture,
Food and Fisheries (MAFF), now DEFRA. There is thus a long history
of funding for the BBSRC-sponsored Institutes from MAFF and subsequently
DEFRA. The BBSRC has increased its funding to its sponsored institutes,
(see para 2.4) on the rationale that to ensure long term world
class science at institutes it is necessary to provide long term
funding. In recent years DEFRA has significantly reduced its funding,
often at short notice and with consequent effects on the skills
base and the amount of applied or strategic science in the areas
of sustainable agriculture and land use and animal health and
welfare. Annexes 4 and 5 illustrate the trends.
3.3 Looking forward there are indications
that there will be further reductions in DEFRA's animal health
and welfare funding. These could result in a real term fall of
over 10% in research funding to BBSRC-sponsored institutes by
2010-11. This does not take into account one of the impacts of
Full Economic Costing which is to raise the cost of research ie
there is less funding available for more expensive research. The
result will inevitably be a reduction in the amount of research
being undertaken. The situation may be even more serious in relation
to the indications of DEFRA's plans for sustainable farming and
food which could give a real term fall of over 40% by 2010-11
compared with 2005-06. In this area DEFRA has already made substantial
reductions in the last year and the impact of these funding reductions
has been strongly felt by two BBSRC- sponsored institutes, IGER
and RRes. This has led to these institutes identifying the potential
need for up to 105 redundancies in 2006-07, including the closure
of one of IGER's sites, with an expectation of further redundancies
in 2006-07 and beyond. The costs of these redundancies, caused
by DEFRA's funding changes and expected to be around £5 million,
are met by the BBSRC from the Science Budget and by the individual
institutes, not by DEFRA.
3.4 In the light of these issues the BBSRC
agrees with the OSI governance review that there is a need to
review the relationships between the BBSRC and its sponsored institutes.
This does not necessarily mean a harmonisation of arrangements
across all BBSRC institutes or indeed in line with the arrangements
of any other Research Council. What might be appropriate for a
land based research institute may not be applicable to an animal
health research institute or a human medicine research institute.
3.5 The BBSRC is in addition fully participating
in the work of the RCUK Shared Services Implementation Project
Board which is delivering the harmonisation of back office services
such as finance and HR across all Research Councils and institutes.
In addition BBSRC-sponsored institutes such as the JIC and the
IFR, both located in Norwich, are already merging back office
operations to save money and thereby invest more in science.
4. ROLE OF
RESEARCH COUNCILS
UK IN MONITORING
AND IMPROVING
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF RESEARCH
COUNCILS' SUPPORT
FOR RCIS
4.1 The BBSRC believes that the BBSRC Council
is the appropriate body to review the effectiveness of the BBSRC's
support for its sponsored institutes. It does this through the
IAE supported by annual updates to Council. Under the current
governance arrangements BBSRC Council considers the whole of the
institute's work, irrespective of the funder and takes account
of other principal funders' views within that assessment. The
IAE includes assessments by international referees and independent
peer review panels, including academic, industrial and other user
representatives. In addition to a comprehensive review of the
quality and strategic relevance of the research programmes by
Visiting Groups, separate assessments are carried out of each
institute's contributions to knowledge transfer, postgraduate
and fellowship training and to the science and society agenda.
Reports from the 2005 IAE are available on the BBSRC website (see
para 2.2).
5. ROLE OF
OFFICE OF
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY/INNOVATION
IN PROVIDING
SUPPORT FOR
RCIS
5.1 AS PREVIOUSLY
SET OUT
(BACKGROUND AND
SECTION 1) RCIS
ARE AN
IMPORTANT PART
OF THE
UK RESEARCH BASE
AND THE
PREFERRED WAY
OF DELIVERING
UK RESEARCH UNDER
CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.
OSI'S SUPPORT
FOR RCIS
IS PROVIDED
VIA THE
ALLOCATIONS PROCESS
TO THE
RELEVANT RESEARCH
COUNCILS INSTITUTE
BASE AS
PART OF
ITS DELIVERY
PLANS. OSI HAS
A REPRESENTATIVE
ON BBSRC COUNCIL
AND IS
KEPT ABREAST
OF SIGNIFICANT
DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN
THE BBSRC INSTITUTES
THROUGH THIS
AND OTHER
ROUTES, INCLUDING
SIX MONTHLY
MEETINGS WITH
THE DIRECTOR
GENERAL OF
THE RESEARCH
COUNCILS TO
DISCUSS PROGRESS
IN MEETING
BBSRC'S TARGETS
IN THE
DELIVERY PLAN.
BBSRC ALSO BID
SUCCESSFULLY TO
THE LARGE
SCALE INFRASTRUCTURE
FUND FOR
THE REBUILDING
OF THE
PIRBRIGHT SITE,
PART OF
THE IAH.
5.2 OSI ALSO
HAS A
ROLE IN
PERSUADING OTHER
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
TO MEET
THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES
(FOR EXAMPLE
UNDER THE
RIPSS REPORT) WHERE
THESE DEPARTMENTS
ARE SIGNIFICANT
FUNDERS OF
RCIS. IN
JANUARY 2005 OSI INSTIGATED
A REVIEW
OF DEFRA, INCLUDING
CONSIDERATION OF
HOW THE
DEPARTMENT COMMISSIONS
AND MANAGES
NEW RESEARCH.
BBSRC LOOKS FORWARD
TO SEEING
THE OUTCOME
OF THIS
REVIEW AND
HOW OSI MIGHT
USE THIS
TO INFLUENCE
DEFRA.
6. PROGRESS ON
CURRENT REORGANISATIONS
INVOLVING RCIS, INCLUDING
ROSLIN INSTITUTE
6.1 BBSRC Council announced its most recent
allocations to the sponsored institutes in February 2006 (http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media/pressreleases/06_02_24_funding_sponsored_institutes.html).
In summary, decisions related to the three key strategic areas
of the institute research base are as follows.
Animal health and welfare
6.2 The IAH (Compton and Pirbright sites)
will receive increased funding to enable a sustainable base for
research in exotic and endemic diseases primarily of cows and
chickens with some work on sheep (scrapie).
6.3 RI has a long tradition of excellence
in animal biosciences and now aims to build on this to create
a new institute in the context of closer collaboration with partner
organisations in the Edinburgh area. By 2009-10, RI will have
moved from its present site to a new £65 million+ facility
on the Easter Bush campus of the University of Edinburgh.
6.4 The new institute will bring together
researchers currently in the RI, the Neuropathogenesis Unit (NPU)
of the IAH and the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and
may also accommodate livestock researchers from the Scottish Agricultural
College (SAC). With a critical mass of 500+ staff, students and
visiting scientists and state-of-the-art facilities for in
silico, in vitro and in vivo research on animals and
their pathogens, the new institute aims to be the world leading
centre for research in animal bioscience.
6.5 BBSRC will provide £35 million
in capital funding for the new research facility. The existing
core funding for RI and NPU will transfer to the new Centre and
a phased increase in core funding, rising to £2 million pa,
will be made to the new Centre. The University of Edinburgh will
be a key partner in the new building and plans a £12 million
capital investment for over 100 staff and PhD students and four
new Professorial posts, working alongside BBSRC funded staff,
to provide an expanded research effort and facilities for the
Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. The new Centre will
be adjacent to the Moredun Research Institute, with whom it is
expected that some research facilities will be shared. The project
to develop this has just commenced.
6.6 The development of joint research over
the next five years is likely to focus on five interrelated themes.
— Infectious disease: study
of interactions between pathogens and their animal hosts to develop
more effective approaches to control of animal diseases, with
distinctive contributions on endemic diseases of ruminants, transmissible
spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), the exploitation of genetic
variation in host response to disease and tropical parasitology.
— Reproduction and development:
investigation of the basic mechanisms controlling reproductive
success in farm animals, including ovarian function, oocyte quality
and foetal development.
— Behaviour and welfare: development
of objective measures of animal welfare and study of the effect
of behavioural and other stressors on the dam on the subsequent
behavioural responses of offspring and the mechanisms responsible.
— Sustainable farm animal production:
identification of economically sustainable approaches to farm
animal breeding and husbandry that deliver improvements in animal
health and welfare and respect the environment.
— Biomedicine: application of
expertise and research in animal health and welfare to improve
human health through, for example, reduction in incidence of zoonoses,
application of comparative medicine and comparative genomics and
the modelling of potential therapies.
Sustainable agriculture and land use
6.7 The JIC will receive increased funding
in recognition of its excellent research and its commitment to
informing crop science with its excellent plant science and its
collaborative links with RRes and IGER.
6.8 RRes and IGER: because of the potential
destabilisation arising from the significant drop in funding from
DEFRA, BBSRC Council is minded to move to one funding stream for
these institutes by April 2007, following the retirement of the
current director of IGER. It has invited the governing bodies
and directors to consider how this could be applied. One possible
outcome could be a merger of the two institutes. However, there
are others, including a reorganisation of land-based research
within Wales to achieve better local integration and efficiency,
whilst also strengthening capability to collaboration with other
parts of the UK and overseas. BBSRC will give full consideration
to a range of options, taking account of advice from the review
of governance.
Biomedical research including diet and food
6.9 BI will receive increased funding because
of its excellence in aspects of cell and developmental biology.
For the IFR, Council endorsed the current policy of focusing in
two key areas: the biology of gastrointestinal tract and nutrition,
diet and health. A review of IFR and its role in food research
in the UK will undertaken, starting in early 2007.
Restructuring
6.10 A number of BBSRC-sponsored institutes
are undergoing various restructuring exercises involving redundancies.
The current exercises are ones where decisions have been taken
and the redundancies are being carried out. The potential ones
relate to exercises that are anticipated, but have not yet begun.
These are detailed below.
| Institute | Current (from 2005-06 onwards)
| Potential |
| BI | 12 | 0
|
| IAH | 104 | 0
|
| IFR | 25 | 0
|
| IGER | 40 (due to DEFRA funding changes)
| Up to another 40 (due to DEFRA funding changes)
|
| JIC | 31 | 0
|
| RI | 6 | 0
|
| RRes | 56 | Up to another 60 (due to DEFRA funding changes)
|
| IFR/JIC back office merger | 45
| 0 |
| | |
6.11 It is clear that DEFRA's funding decisions are having
a significant impact at the land based research institutes. It
has been extremely challenging to gain clarity on DEFRA's long
term funding plans as continue to develop a new Evidence and Innovation
Strategy.
| 
