Research Funding

2007

For the financial year 2006/2007 the Institute’s total research funding remained at £17m, a slight decrease compared with the previous year. The overall funding profile was broadly similar to previous years with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and BBSRC being the largest funders of IGER research with smaller levels of income provided by other UK government organisations, the European Commission and Industry as shown below.

IGER All Income
2006/07

Income from BBSRC rose from winning a number of competitive strategic grants. Notable successful competitive project grant applications were “Control and manipulation of flowering time in Miscanthus” and the joint DfID/BBSRC funded “Integrating genomics and mapping approaches to improve pearl millet productivity in drought prone regions of Africa and Asia”. In addition, a five-year BBSRC Fellowship was awarded to an IGER scientist (plus assistant) to work on ‘Understanding and Exploiting the Diversity of Form in Miscanthus.’. IGER also won a grant under BBSRC’s Research Equipment Initiative for a cryosectioning and laser microdissection facility for gene, metabolite and protein profiling from pure populations of cells and cell types. In addition, BBSRC funding has been obtained under the European Research Network in Plant Genetics (ERANET-PG) for an IGER-led consortium on “Translational genomics of the model legume Medicago truncatula applied to red clover (TRANSLEG)”.

Despite recent problems with DEFRA funding, total income from Defra actually rose slightly (ca. 2%) compared to the previous year, with a rise in income from commissions and a decrease from competitive contracts. New large Defra projects include the LINK projects, “Reducing the risk of diffuse pollution by improved assessment of the nutrient content in farm manures and biosolids via Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS)”, and “Conversion of high sugar grasses to alcohol based transport fuel (GRASSOHOL), “Ruminant nutrition regimes to reduce methane and nitrogen emissions”, “Techniques to enhance the establishment and persistence of poor-performing species in grassland restoration”, “Land and water quality research (coordination)”, Grass and clover genetic improvement to deliver environmental benefits”, ”’Cracking Clays’ - To improve understanding on cracking clay soils of the interactions that occur between diffuse pollution processes and pathways to the water (i.e. nitrate-N, ammonium-N, phosphorus and microbial pathogens) and air (i.e. ammonia and nitrous oxide) environments”, “Biodiversity and other beneficial environmental impacts of organic conversion in hills and uplands”, and “Development of an integrated management framework and approaches for livestock farming systems”. Defra also provided funding to IGER via the “Plant-based strategies to enhance the nutritional value of beef (ProBeef)” project as match funding for the large, Teagasc-led EU “ProSafeBeef” http://www.prosafebeef.eu/asp/. In addition to the above, a new five-year extension has been granted to an existing DEFRA project, “Sustainable Management Systems for Unimproved Neutral Grassland”.  

Continuing uncertainty over future DEFRA funding means that research funding is increasingly being sought from other government sponsors such as the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG). This ‘other governmental department’ funding rose by ca.  9% compared to the previous year. Increased funding from WAG during 2007 involved a range of projects, including two new Knowledge Exploitation Fund (KEF) grants, “Plant-derived antimicrobials for pathogen control in silage inoculants” (led by Aberystwyth University), and “In-vitro equine wound assay for testing efficacy of plant and proprietary healing products”, and a two-part WAG and Industry-funded project entitled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - Managing agricultural practice (U-MAP)”.  WAG has also agreed to match fund the recently confirmed DEFRA Link project “Grassohol”. Successful Welsh Energy Research Centre (WERC) projects beginning in 2007 include “Bio-Ethanol Wales” led by Swansea University, and “Energy from biomass and waste”, led by Cardiff University; these latter also receive funding from WAG and the EC European Regional Development Fund.

IGER’s research income from the European Commission in 2007 has decreased considerably (ca. 37%) compared with last year. However, the new EU Framework 6 project “ProSafeBeef”, match funded by DEFRA, started in March 2007. A number of EU Framework 7 project proposals were confirmed in 2007. These include “Innovative and practical management approaches to reduce nitrogen excretion by ruminants (REDNEX)”, and “Structuring Infrastructures for the Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems (ANAEE)”.

Income from industry and levy boards was considerably lower (by ca. 27%) than last year but an exciting new project, “Developing Miscanthus cultivars for use in bioenergy production” funded by a US company, started in April 2007. Germinal Holdings Ltd continues to fund large breeding programmes at IGER. Other smaller projects were obtained during 2007 for work on silages: IGER is now dependent on winning such contracts from industrial companies, as funding available from levy boards has shrunk to a very low level.