Imperial and partners receive £4.5million from the BBSRC to equip the life scientists of the future

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded approximately £4.5 million to Imperial College London, Royal Holloway, University of London and the Research Complex at Harwell to establish a joint Doctoral Training Partnership.

The funding is part of a £67 million investment in postgraduate training and development in the biosciences announced by the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts today, which will support 14 Doctoral Training Partnerships across the country.

The Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) awarded to Imperial and its partners will aim to provide research-led training with a focus on the development of quantitative, technological and bioscience skills. It will draw on the partners’ shared experience of interdisciplinary approaches to research, encouraging interaction between students on the programme. It will also ecourange them to engage with some of the areas linked to the BBSRC’s strategic research training priorities such as food security, Bioenegy and Industrial Biotechnology, and basic Bioscience underpinning health.

Imperial’s academic lead on the project, Professor Martin Buck from the Department of Life Sciences, said: “Doctoral students increasingly play a major role in the interface between different research disciplines. Being able to cross these interfaces is in many cases key to how we tackle major research challenges in the basic and applied sciences. Interdisciplinary approaches lie at the heart of our Doctoral Training Partnership with Royal Holloway, and will help ensure we develop a new generation of scientists with the expertise and scope to truly innovate in their work.”

Professor Alan Gange, Head of the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, said: “We are delighted to be part of this successful bid with Imperial College. It confirms our position among the leading bioscience departments in the UK and provides a magnificent opportunity to progress our collaborative work. Furthermore, it will establish both institutions as leaders in the critical areas of food security and biotechnology research.”

The DTPs represent a new, more strategic approach from BBSRC to deliver highly skilled scientists for the UK research base. Taken as a whole, the DTP programme will deliver scientists with the training to meet major social and economic challenges in food security, sustainable bioenergy and renewable materials and improving lifelong health and wellbeing, as well as supporting those undertaking research in core underpinning bioscience.

Announcing the funding David Willetts MP said: “This £67 million investment in postgraduate training is excellent news for students, research organisations, industry and the UK as a whole. The brightest and best students will be finding solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing us all, from food security through to renewable energy. “The partnership approach means that many institutions are combining their strengths to provide students with improved training and relevant work experience. This will better equip them for future careers, be it in research, industry, or elsewhere.”

An innovative and integral element of the programme, built in to enhance the employability of the DTP students, is the requirement for them to undertake a three-month professional internship outside of the lab. Destinations for these internships will include policymaking, media, teaching and industry, and will help to widen their experience of the areas of work in which they can apply their PhD skills and training.

Celia Caulcott, BBSRC Director of Innovation and Skills said: “We believe that this approach is a great way of doing things, enabling us to support the very best students working in the most important areas from food security through to crucial underpinning bioscience. “DTPs are all about training researchers to be the best they can be. By doing this we can make real inroads into answering global conundrums which will ultimately have a massive impact on the UK economy and further afield.”