by Anglia Innovation Partnership, the science park management organization at Norwich Research Park, is running a new initiative looking to bring together researchers and industry representatives for interdisciplinary collaborations that could lead to significant progress on some of the world’s major challenges. deep in food, health and climate change.
Today, there are much closer links between academic research and industry as we try to address some of the major global challenges we face in food security, agriculture, crop resistance, climate change and human health . And now, to make this easier, an initiative run by Dr Kirsty Culley of Innovation Partnership Anglia aims to match businesses with researchers at Norwich Research Park so that solutions to some of these issues can be developed .
Dr Kirsty Culley from Anglia Innovation Partnership (Image: Chris Ball Photography)
The Explorers’ Forum programme, part of Anglia’s wider Innovation Partnership Enterprise Strategy, brings people from both academia and business together on topics of common interest to explore collaborative solutions and opportunities. Depending on the topic, this can range from day-long facilitated workshops, visits to other sites of interest and tailored visits to the Park from industry.
The program can provide funds of up to £5,000 to organize exploratory meetings and activities between the research and business communities to identify new innovations that could tackle some of the key global challenges we face.
A good example of this approach that has an immediate positive impact is the field of gene editing for the sugar beet industry. Last year, the government passed the Precision Breeding Bill, which allows plants to be genetically edited to improve traits such as yield, disease resistance or ripening time.
Gene editing only removes or duplicates existing genes in a crop, it does not introduce any foreign genes. It means that results normally achieved through natural cross-breeding over many years can be done pretty much immediately – a real advantage when dealing with the pace at which some of the global challenges we face are developing.
Sugar beet is a very important crop in the East of England, where some of British Sugar’s main processing centers are located in Bury St Edmunds and Cantley. The industry, as a whole, supports around 9,000 jobs across the UK and supplies more than 50pc of the country’s demand for sugar.
One of the Explorer Forum workshops focused on gene editing for the sugar beet industry (Image: Getty Images)
An all-day Explorers Forum workshop, facilitated by innovation specialists from Downstream Innovation, was set up to explore new options that gene editing could offer the sugar beet industry covering disease resistance, improving crop yields and developing new varieties.
Representatives from the British Beet Research Organization (BBRO), Tropic, a leading agricultural biotechnology company (both based at Norwich Research Park), British Sugar, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs attended DEFRA), an international seed breeding company, sugar beet growers and scientists from the Park institutes, the John Innes Center and the Earlham Institute at the workshop to exchange ideas and explore these new opportunities to help the sugar beet industry.
One project to develop further thinking is the threat to sugar beet from a disease called Virus Yellows, which can have a devastating effect on the crop. Growers have reported yield losses of up to 80pc in recent years. Current measures to combat this disease include the use of chemical-based pesticides to neutralize the aphid vector that transmits the disease. DEFRA must authorize the use of these pesticides, but it is now accepted that this is not a sustainable long-term solution as chemicals such as these are controversial and considered by some to be harmful.
It was agreed that participants from the John Innes Centre, the British Beet Research Organization (BBRO), Tropic (all based at Norwich Research Park) and British Sugar would run a project to explore opportunities to protect sugar beet from the threat of Virus Yellows, using from a gene editing technology platform developed by Tropic to enable the crop to have natural resistance to the disease.
The project identified that a budget of £1m was required to create the gene editing programme. He managed to secure a grant of just over £660,000 from the Farming Futures Innovate UK R&D Fund with the balance funded by British Sugar, Tropic and the John Innes Centre.
The gene editing method should be able to protect the sugar beet crop much faster than transbreeding, radically reduce the amount of chemical-based pesticides used, cut costs for farmers and, ultimately for consumers , and make sugar beet more profitable and therefore more. an attractive crop for farmers to grow. The yield will be better and the sugar beet industry will be more sustainable, keeping people employed.
Dr Kirsty Culley, science collaboration manager at Anglia Innovation Partnership, said: “We’re doing so much cutting-edge research at Norwich Research Park that it can be used to help solve the industry’s key challenges.
“It was a very valuable exercise to bring all the expertise together in one room for a day to investigate gene editing in sugar beet with real outputs. Now that we have proven that this approach can have a positive impact, we are expanding our forums to other areas and would like to receive interest from those in the industry who would like to have a conversation about using this method to solve to meet their challenges.”
Another Explorer Forum visited the Silverstone Technology Cluster in Northamptonshire. It focused on finding opportunities for scientists at Norwich Research Park to work together with Silverstone’s advanced engineering companies.
Representatives from Norwich Research Park visited a number of Silverstone companies to establish new links and collaborations, particularly in the areas of additive manufacturing, new carbon neutral materials, automated and vertical farming and battery technology.
The team behind UEA subsidiary Cellexcel also attended the visit to show their work to the companies at Silverstone. Cellexcel is developing plant-based waterproof bio-composites that can eventually replace plastic materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass to make cars, aircraft and bicycles.
Carbon fibers and fiberglass create high CO2 emissions during their manufacture. A change to bio-based composites made from materials like flax or hemp would make a measurable difference. Not only will they use less energy in the manufacturing process, but growing a field of hemp or flax in the first place will absorb a significant amount of CO2.
Companies that are part of the Space East cluster attended an Explorer Forum workshop with researchers from Norwich Research Park to discuss the satellite sector (Image: Anglia Innovation Partnership)
Another Explorers Forum workshop was held in collaboration with Space East. Companies working in space-related industries, which are part of the East Space cluster, as well as the Satellite Applications Catapult, attended to help researchers from Norwich Research Park, the status of solutions and the current challenges of the satellite sector. understanding.
Researchers then helped company representatives understand the capabilities of their science and spent time exploring synergies in areas such as positioning East Anglia as a test bed for new technologies, developing next-generation crops, precision farming, soil quality , water management and pesticide use.
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership (Image: Chris Ball Photography)
Roz Bird, Chief Executive of Innovation Partnership Anglia, said: “One of the key things I’ve learned in managing science parks and business parks is the huge benefit of bringing people together with a common interest and inspiring them. to exchange views, share data. and working together.
“In the world of science park management, we call this ‘engineered servitude’. We are planning many more Explorer Forums in 2024 as it is a great way to create new collaborations and help solve real industry problems. The Explorer Forums are one of the many ways we can ensure we maximize the societal impact of the great publicly funded research taking place on campus.”
