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PROFILE

In this exclusive interview, Dr Celia Caulcott talks passionately to International Innovation about the ways BBSRC brings together academic research and commercial enterprises – both geographically and intellectually – to facilitate innovation and the growth of the UK’s bioeconomy

Dr Celia Caulcott

Executive Director, Innovation and Skills,

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences

Research Council

Can you outline your role and main responsibilities as Executive Director, Innovation and Skills for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)?

I have the responsibility of making sure that we obtain innovative output from our research investment. Sometimes, when I’m working with businesses I will describe myself as the head of business development for the BBSRC, but I also help universities and institutes to spot good ideas that might become commercial or applicable to societal need, and support those as they grow.

It’s all about ensuring that research makes a difference. I do this through three main approaches: working with industry and businesses, supporting good ideas as they come out of research bases and making sure we’ve got a great class of skilled people.

How have your previous professional experiences helped you to succeed in this position?

Most of my experience has been in business. I’ve worked in large companies – what was then ICI Pharmaceuticals and is now part of GlaxoSmithKline and the Wellcome Foundation – and also small

enterprises, such as Celltech, the first UK biotech company. I’ve worked with a variety of other small companies collaborating with universities. To add greater breadth, I have worked in the university sector, for Imperial College London, as the most senior research manager, and with the biomedical charity – a Wellcome Trust. Everything I’ve done has been about developing research ideas to make a difference. Even working in the pharmaceutical industry as a researcher and then a manager, I was at the interface between development and research.

What are the key features of BBSRC’s innovation strategy?

We want to make sure businesses can interrogate what’s going on in the research base and collaborate to facilitate the commercialisation of scientific output. Additionally, we support the emergence of new businesses.

We ensure that, wherever feasible, businesses and industry can access research capability. This might mean knowing what’s going on through the use of big software systems; the Research Council’s Gateway to Research, for example, allows businesses to find out what research projects are being funded. We also create opportunities within companies for those from the academic sector through studentship and internship

Value-added research

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systems, and have research industry clubs that bring companies and researchers together around specific topics.

We could be described as facilitators – a reputation I’ve tried to establish in my six or so years at BBSRC. We fulfil the important role of helping the research base and industry to come together. It’s not a collision – we encourage a degree of diffusion and fluidity between the interface, which is really important.

For what reasons has the importance placed upon translation and commercialisation of basic research increased in recent years?

I think that the key driver is the desire to understand the impact and difference that research is making. It isn’t particularly an increased focus on translation and commercialisation – although that’s there. What people really want to know is if the money they’ve invested into research has made a difference. People and the government are becoming more interested in science; when money is tight more questions are asked about the effectiveness of investments.

If you are a scientist it’s fantastic being funded to carry out a great piece of research, but if nobody asks you why you’re doing it, to some extent, you are just operating in isolation. There’s a growing recognition that science is about partnerships: the researchers are not on their own, they’re part of a bigger system.

In addition to targeting funding to particular priority areas, BBSRC also strives to build partnerships. Why is this important?

People can achieve much more when they work with partners, who bring different ideas, needs, skills and interests. I am very keen that researchers understand what the needs of the industry are and, conversely, that industry understands what the research base can do. Science is fantastic for asking long-term, large-scale, difficult questions and finding a variety of routes to the answers. However, if you want to know something instantly the research base is not always as effective.

In what ways do BBSRC-funded research and innovation campuses help facilitate innovation in the UK?

It’s about access and proximity. Every research innovation campus has a leading research institute connected to it. A long-term commitment from BBSRC to fund prominent scientists with phenomenal facilities and capabilities creates a science environment that is very attractive to new and emerging companies. Furthermore, each has a

particular scientific focus, for example, Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire is a crop science research institute interested in soils and crop pest management. Its presence attracts similarly focused commercial enterprises that are drawn to the scientific output and access to facilities.

For us, the research and innovation campuses are about enabling companies to grow alongside the research base, providing them with support and access to otherwise prohibitively expensive facilities and equipment. The enterprises, in return, help ensure that the outputs of the research base make an impact in the UK.

What are your thoughts on the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) system for assessing the quality of research in higher education institutions?

It is absolutely tremendous that the Higher Education Funding Council for England has revised its position about impact. Five years ago, when development of REF began, HEFCE was not keen to have impact included as part of the criteria, but fortunately, they changed their mind.

The results confirmed what we already know; we fund excellent research in excellent institutions. The details of which universities are at the top and which are second and third, are subtleties caused mostly by the metrics of measurement.

We see research grants every month; in some ways the Research Councils are more current in their awareness of what is excellent and the REF is more retrospective. It can only look back while we also seek to look forward.

Why is public engagement important to the BBSRC?

Engaging doesn’t just mean explaining what great biology is, it’s about creating a dialogue, a partnership. Many of the areas of science that worry the public are within our remit: stem cells, genetically modified crops and synthetic biology. These can cause concern, perhaps because they are new or poorly understood, or as a result

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of potential applications. We believe that people have the right to be apprehensive and our role is to ensure that the research we fund reflects those concerns.

Furthermore, there’s what’s known as our ‘license to operate’. We want to be able to do biology and do it well in this country. If the public was unhappy with the way biological research is funded, carried out and communicated, justifying funding for research would be more difficult.

Can you elaborate on some of the ways that BBSRC engages directly with business and industry? What are the outcomes of such interactions?

We engage with enterprises in a variety of different ways: some quite personal and small, such as holding a dinner for our chief executive and senior executives of companies, or we might work with conferences and workshops. Perhaps the most important approach we use is to spend time visiting companies and simply talking with them. We also endeavour to support interactions between researchers and industry so that they can work collaboratively to identify areas where the outputs of research will be attractive to, and needed by, the industry. We try to make sure there are research programmes being undertaken in academic institutions that are delivering outcomes that commercial enterprises and industry will be interested in.

As an example, we organise research industry clubs through which industry and academia work together to design an area of research of mutual interest. We have one in food and drink, which is known as DRINC (Diet and Health Research Industry Club). Results from this collaboration have led to bakery chain Greggs exploring what happens when you put

alginate in bread to reduce fat absorption and impact moisture retention. Another example to arise from DRINC is a study looking at society and how people respond to feeling full and control their eating. Results of this have been taken into hospital work for people undergoing gastric surgery, and it’s also being used by Nestlé in some research they’re doing on portion sizes.

The commercialisation of ideas can evolve from a variety of different contexts. A member of staff from Marks & Spencer had an idea for a new food line when attending one of our research industry club meetings. She went to discuss her thoughts with a researcher who saw value in carrying out some preliminary investigations. This research led to the ‘Fuller for Longer’ products.

We build relationships, generally on a one-to-one basis, and try to develop research programmes that multiple companies are interested in – if they see results that have potential for commercialisation we offer support to facilitate effective and efficient translation.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

The Babraham Research Campus is home to the Babraham Institute, a variety of new and developing life science companies and activities, and set near other major campuses such as the Addenbrookes Hospital site, and the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus.

It is an amazing environment that facilitates scientific research and its translation into commercial enterprises.

THE BIOECONOMY: A WORKING DEFINITION

All economic activity derived from bio-based products and processes that contribute to sustainable and resource-efficient solutions to the

challenges we face in food, chemicals, materials, energy production, health and environmental protection.

– Chairs of the Agritech Leadership Council, Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum and Synthetic Biology Leadership Council, January 2015.

Addenbrooke’s Hospital

Babraham Institute

Granta Science Park

Wellcome Trust Genome Campus

Chesterford Research Park

Cambridge

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BABRAHAM: A SHINING EXAMPLEOF A RESEARCH AND INNOVATION CAMPUS

A hub of biomedical innovation in the making

Babraham Hall purchased by the Agricultural Research Council to create the Institute of Animal Physiology

Babraham became a BBSRC-funded institute when the Research Council was formed

Work relating to agriculture ceased and the institute shifted to focus on molecular and cell biology

Commercial enterprises began to grow up in the area surrounding the Babraham Institute, attracted by the research being carried out there funded by BBSRC, the Medical Research Council, European Commission, Wellcome Trust and other charities, and industry

BBSRC awarded £44 million to invest in the Babraham Campus, deliver innovation from the research base, generate economic growth and create jobs

The number of commercial enterprises on the Babraham Campus increased from 30 to 50

NUMBER CRUNCH

Funded by the UK Government, BBSRC has a budget of around £484 million (2013-14) to support research and training in UK universities and eight strategically funded institutes

Since 2011, BBSRC has invested nearly £100 million in the development of research and innovation campuses…

• Easter Bush Campus

• Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus

• Rothamsted Centre for Research and Enterprise

• Babraham Research Campus

• Norwich Research Park

…and an additional £242.4 million on its eight strategically funded institutes:

• Babraham Institute

• Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences

• Institute of Food Research

• John Innes Centre

• Pirbright Institute

• Roslin Institute

• Rothamsted Research

• The Genome Analysis Centre

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