Memorandum from the Institute for Animal
Health
INTRODUCTION
1. The Institute for Animal Health (IAH)
is a world-leading centre of excellence, and the major centre
in the UK, for research on infectious diseases of livestock. It
has three sites, located at Compton in Berkshire; Pirbright in
Surrey; and the Neuropathogenesis Unit in Edinburgh. The IAH is
one of seven research institutes sponsored by the Biotechnology
and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
2. The mission of the IAH is "to deliver
high quality fundamental, strategic and applied science into infectious
animal disease and, from that knowledge, to advance veterinary
and medical science, enhance the sustainability of livestock farming,
improve animal welfare, safeguard the supply and safety of food,
and protect public health and the environment".
3. This document is submitted to the Committee
following the oral evidence sessions held on 1 November 2006 with
the directors of three BBSRC-sponsored institutes, and with the
Minister of State (Sustainable Farming and Food) and the Chief
Scientific Advisor from the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs. It will address:
— Continuity of IAH funding from Defra.
— Meeting the full economic cost of
research.
— Redevelopment of the Pirbright site.
CONTINUITY OF
DEFRA FUNDING
4. The IAH is a key research contractor
for Defra, and has undertaken research for the Department over
many years. In recent times this funding (apart from the exception
of a block grant for disease surveillance) has been in the form
of discrete contracts for specific pieces of research, with no
guarantee of continuity from one contract to the next. While this
is clearly in keeping with Defra's approach to all its research
contractors, the uncertainties associated with it cause significant
problems, both for the management of the institute and for the
long-term well-being of the UK research base in areas of high
importance to Defra policy. The main issues relate to retaining
expertise and skills, and to the maintenance of key biological
resources.
Expertise and skills
5. Difficulties are caused to IAH for two
main reasons in respect of Defra funding:
1. A reduction in Defra funding streams
per se from one grant to the next.
2. Indecision or delay by Defra to continue
with funding, even when IAH has been approached in the first place
to undertake an area of work.
6. The impact of these scenarios is that
either key individuals at IAH are lost as individual projects
finish (1 above) or that IAH has to fund staff with bridging funds
from the core budget for the months during which Defra takes key
decisions (2 above). The latter action then leaves other science
projects with potential funding shortfalls or results in reduced
budgets for other areas of activity within the IAH.
7. The loss of key staff and key skills
is a major problem when Defra funds are terminated or reduced.
A good example of an area where the institute has recently stepped
in to maintain work after partial loss of Defra funding is cellular
immunology as it relates to studies on enteric pathogens, principally
the gut-dwelling Eimeria (coccidial) parasites. The complexities
both of the host immune response to infection and the presentation
to the host of protective parasite antigens mean that the IAH,
through many decades of research, has world-class expertise and
investigators in this area. When funding for this work was reduced
by Defra and IAH risked losing skills both relevant to the remaining
Defra-funded work and, more importantly, to a broader science
base (including studies on Salmonella), IAH chose to retain
the senior scientist on the project through the use of the institute's
core strategic grant funded by the BBSRC i.e. to subsidise Defra
related work. Interestingly, the work of this individual in the
past three years has led to the identification of a new platform
technology for the identification of protective antigens in complex
pathogens. This work is now being considered by potential commercial
partners and IAH is seeking to establish a spin-out company.
8. Defra are currently delaying their decision
to continue funding on bovine respiratory syncytial virus and
IAH was actively encouraged by Defra during early 2006 to apply
for follow-on funding for the current work (which ended in October
2006), only to be told that funding in this area was awaiting
the end of the Defra moratorium on spending. IAH has written to
Defra to ask for a bridging sum to cover the time interval between
the end of the old grant and the start of the new grant, which
will be at least 6 months as the expected start is March 2007,
but has not received any response, either to that request or any
indication as to whether the new grant will be signed-off. Again
if the specialist resource for Defra's work is to be retained
by IAH it will have to be subsidised by using the BBSRC funded
core strategic grant.
9. In other cases (including work on exotic
viruses at Pirbright) flat funding during the past three years
for the Reference Laboratories (ie a significant cut in real terms)
has meant that key areas of work, including some critical state-of-the
art diagnostics, has to be undertaken by PhD students at the very
beginning of their research training—and not by experienced
technical staff.
Biological resources
10. Among the great strengths of IAH are
its genetically defined lines of poultry and cattle. The institute
currently has 11 genetically-distinct lines of poultry and the
collection is unique anywhere in the world. It currently costs
approximately £0.8 million per annum to maintain the breeding
flocks alone. Although these resources are essential for the internationally
renowned poultry research funded by Defra and, critically, underpin
new studies on avian influenza that cannot be done anywhere else
the Department does not contribute to the on-going maintenance
costs. Similarly, IAH's genetically-defined lines of cattle are
essential for research programmes in bovine immunology and directly
support Defra-funded work on bovine TB. If the institute did not
pay for the on-going costs of maintaining these biological resources,
they would not be available on demand for essential Defra programmes
and would not enable the IAH to respond to new disease challenges.
RESEARCH AND
DISEASE SURVEILLANCE
COSTS
11. When Defra funding is secured for a
given piece of research, the level of funding does not reflect
the actual costs of the research, as defined using the full economic
cost (FEC) model introduced following changes to the funding of
Research Council grants. Despite discussions during 2005-06 aimed
at renegotiating the costs of research, Defra funding on the majority
of its programmes has remained level in cash terms. Calculations
show that the ensuing shortfall can be as much as 40%. The IAH
has received an uplift in absolute funding in the area of exotic
virus research (eg research into foot and mouth disease) but even
this is not at a sufficient level to meet FEC costs. Elsewhere,
the IAH has received flat funding, at best, for work on non-exotic
pathogens—which means a ~40% cut in FEC terms.
12. Defra also funds the core activities
of the reference laboratories at the IAH's Pirbright site, which
provide emergency diagnostic services for a number of strategically
important animal diseases, including foot and mouth disease, African
swine fever and bluetongue. This funding is provided through a
block grant, the level of which has remained at £1.7 million
pa in cash terms for the last three years ie a real term cut.
In addition no account has been taken of the increased costs relating
to the introduction of FEC making the real cut even larger and
leading to a reduction in staff and consumables. The Visiting
Group to the IAH in June 2006 noted that the equipment in these
laboratories was in desperate need of investment, but this is
not possible without additional funding from the Department.
13. In some cases, the gaps in funding which
result from Defra's decision-making processes are again met from
the IAH's core funding, again provided from the DTI's Science
Budget via BBSRC. But this results in financial pressure on other
institute activities and is not sustainable in the longer-term.
FUTURE OF
THE PIRBRIGHT
SITE
14. Work is now underway on the new Pirbright
Laboratory which will provide a new Centre for Veterinary Virology
supporting scientists from both the Veterinary Laboratories Agency
(at Defra's request) and IAH. The budget for the new build is
£121 million including inflation and, in terms of capital
expenditure, both DTI and Defra have committed their full contribution
for the life of the project (2004-12). Operating costs of the
new Laboratory will be higher than the existing Pirbright Laboratory
and the most recent version of an "Affordability Model"
shows a funding gap of £8.2 million per annum.
15. BBSRC are committed to paying their
proportionate share of the affordability gap, but Defra have not
yet been able to commit to funding its/VLA share of the potential
future funding gap—as per Recommendation 1 of the Gateway
2 report of 9 February 2006. This commitment is being sought as
a matter of considerable urgency as the main builders are working
on final plans and costings, and are due to start work on the
main laboratory complex in July 2007 after completion of the Gateway
3 procedure in May 2007.
November 2006
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