BBSRC: BBSRC-STFC facility access funding for bioscience partnerships

01/12/2022

06/01/2023

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council invite applications for the facility access funding for bioscience partnerships call. This supports UK business and bioscience academic partnerships in accessing and benefitting from STFC skills, expertise, capabilities and world class facilities to find solutions to industrially-relevant challenges. The total budget is £1.1 million. The maximum award of the project can be up to £100,000. BBSRC and STFC will cover 100% of the facility costs, and 80% of the full economic cost of the academic component. Projects can be undertaken any time over a 12-month period.

The programme provides support and access to advanced analytical technologies, expertise, and capabilities, located at STFC’s large scale science facilities around the UK including Harwell, and Daresbury, specifically including: -neutrons: study structure and dynamics of materials at the atomic scale, including organic systems, the interaction of antimicrobials with pathogen membranes, or toxins from pathogens with models of mammalian and plant membranes; -X-rays: acquire high-resolution data to accelerate drug discovery, design and development. This includes gathering 3-dimensional structure data of macromolecular drug targets and their ligands for drug target identification, and investigate the size, stability and conformation of macromolecules in solution; -lasers: extensive laser-based techniques to understand everything from single-molecule transport in biological systems to environmental changes and chemical pathways in cells, tissues and biomaterials. Or watch how chemical and biochemical changes in materials happen in real-time; -high performance computing: access to computing resources, from classic computing for molecular simulations (for example, structural drug representations and molecular docking), to data analysis of complex datasets looking for significant correlations, to drug interaction and stability both in the formulation and in solution.

To be an eligible business for funding applicants must be a UK based business registered at Companies House, have a manufacturing base for the relevant product in the UK or provide the relevant service in the UK and intend to exploit the results in the UK. At the expression of interest stage, challenge statements must be submitted by the business partner. Businesses do not need an academic partner to submit an expression of interest. However to be eligible for funding at the full proposal stage BBSRC and STFC require an academic-business partnership. Eligible academic partners must be from 1 of the following organisations: UK higher education institutions research council institutes; UKRI approved independent research organisations; public sector research establishments; NHS bodies with research capacity. STFC facility staff are not eligible as academic partners.