RSC chief welcomes substantial investment in UK bioscience

Dr Robert Parker today welcomed the announcement of £250m allocated by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) as the first phase of a five year strategic investment programmes. 

The Royal Society of Chemistry Chief Executive said it was an important step towards tackling many of the global challenges outlined in Chemistry for Tomorrow's World: a roadmap for the chemical sciences, adding that chemists will be pivotal figures in many of the institutes and programmes being funded.

"Chemistry, working in partnership across disciplines, plays a key role in many of the major issues facing us today, including sustainability, energy and resources and drug discovery, to name a few. Chemistry will underpin many of the BBSRC's initiatives, in particular relating to food security, bioenergy, synthetic biology and biotechnology.

"The institutions that will benefit from this important investment are involved in meeting many of the challenges the RSC outlined in our Roadmap."

The BBSRC investment includes 26 strategic science programmes and 14 key national research capabilities, to be delivered by eight of the UK's world-leading bioscience research institutes and their university partners. 

To complement the crossover in science disciplines highlighted by today's announcement, the RSC recently launched its new journal Biomaterials Science. It will feature high-impact research bridging materials science, biology, chemistry and physics. The journal expects to publish the first online articles in the third quarter of 2012.