Strategic plan: overview 2010-2015

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Working with stakeholders, BBSRC has identified leading priorities and themes that are essential to keep the UK at the cutting edge of bioscience.

Our future plans are structured around:

World-class bioscience

We will continue to advance excellent bioscience across the breadth of our remit from molecules to systems (see World-class bioscience). High-quality research, people and institutions are the bedrock of a world-class bioscience base that delivers social and economic benefits from public investment in science and attracts co-investment from the private and third sectors.

Key strategic research priorities

As well as our strong commitment to funding curiosity-led research across a broad base we highlight three priority areas for particular focus. These are uniquely at the core of our remit, where focus will have the most impact, nationally and internationally:

Food security: bioscience for a sustainable supply of sufficient, affordable, nutritious and safe food, adapting to a rapidly changing world
Bioenergy and industrial biotechnology: biofuels and industrial materials from novel biological sources, reducing dependency on petrochemicals and helping the UK to become a low carbon economy
Basic bioscience underpinning health: driving advances in fundamental bioscience for better health and improved quality of life across the lifecourse, reducing the need for medical and social intervention

Enabling themes

We have prioritised three enabling themes, which are critical to our vision for UK bioscience. These cross-cutting themes will require clear actions over and beyond this planning period. Getting the themes right, and in some cases embracing the inherent culture change, is essential to ensure successful delivery of economic and social benefits from our investment of public money:

Knowledge exchange, innovation and skills: maximising the impact of our science and skilled people in boosting the UK economy, informing policy and improving quality of life
Exploiting new ways of working: enabling innovative working practices in an era of rapid technological advancement, the next generation internet, and quantitative and computational approaches to bioscience
Partnerships: working with our many stakeholders and other funders, nationally and internationally, to deliver our ambitious vision for UK bioscience

Click for enlarged version.
Diagram showing that world-class bioscience and the key strategic research priorities, underpinnned by the enabling themes, can lead to a wide range of impacts, such as: low carbon economy, international development, improved quality of life, economic impact, better public policy and services, skilled people and jobs, strong science base and new knowledge.

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Contact

Corporate Policy and Strategy
bbsrc.cps@bbsrc.ac.uk