BBSRC FTMA 2024-2027 St Andrews Dundee JHI

The University of St Andrews, the University of Dundee, and the James Hutton Institute are partnering to address the BBSRC priority area 'Building a Green Future'. Their FTMA 2024-2027 programme uses leading plant, microbial and sustainability-relevant research to develop cross-disciplinary knowledge and enhanced career opportunities for early-career researchers (ECRs) and research technical professionals (RTPs) in East Scotland.

The partnership will build tighter working relationships with agri-food businesses, reducing carbon emissions and expensive wastage by improving crop farming efficiency, and enhancing crop resilience in a changing climate. The Research Organisations will learn from business and policy challenges facing the transition to net-zero agriculture, and support innovation by enabling secondments and exchanges between academia, research institutions, and industry.

The partners will focus on new technical skills development for advancing net-zero agricultural food systems. It will also support sustainability training to decarbonise research methods in the BBSRC remit. The partners will share their learning with BBSRC and the sector.

The partnership represents the Organisations' distinctive dual commitment to research for advancing agri-food and environmental sustainability, and to decarbonising our research activities more generally. St Andrews (USTAN) will be carbon neutral by 2035 and sources energy from its £25M biomass plant and new solar array. The University's life sciences research is shaped by the BBSRC-remit St Andrews Network for Climate, Energy, Environment.

The University of Dundee's (UoD) research divisions of Plant Sciences and Molecular Microbiology tackle issues relevant to net zero agriculture and soil carbon sequestration, and their Research Sustainability Officer supports and promotes sustainable research design throughout the School of Life Sciences. The James Hutton Institute (JHI) aims to be carbon neutral by 2040.

In partnership with JHI, the UoD's new Binks Sustainability Institute works on sustainable food production and other sustainability themes while BARIToNE, a BBSRC-funded Collaborative Training Partnership comprising 18 industrial and 6 other academic partners, collaborates to drive down the environmental footprint of barley production. JHI supports The Centre for Sustainable Cropping and is experienced in incubating new commercial work on its Open Science Campus.

The partners will hold open calls for ECRs and RTPs to apply for secondment or training funds. They will provide workshop and one-to-one support for new applicants. Proposals will be judged on how they support career and sectoral development.

The partners will convene a cross-institutional panel to evaluate applications and award funding. Oversight will come from a cross-institutional Governance and Management Committee. The Committee will monitor all funding progress, funding, and EDI and adjust the call design to ensure the FTMA responds to staff needs.

The FTMA will focus on giving initial benefits to the Organisations' ECRs and RTPs working in plant, microbial and sustainability-relevant research. It includes mechanisms to expand the Organisations' reach, which includes working with current collaborators including major whiskey producers, biosciences incubators, and third sector decarbonisation organisations.

By boosting career opportunities, the Organisations will empower staff to generate long-term benefits for agri-food industry and policy groups around the world.