Government sponsored body announces biggest ever public funding of bioenergy research
Tue 27 January 2009
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The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is to introduce a £27m academic-industry partnership which is intended to help deliver progress in the bioenergy sector. One of the main aims of the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre will be to provide the science to underpin the development of sustainable biofuels for transport.
The project, which is claimed to be the largest single public investment in scientific research in this area, was announced by the Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson. The funding of the Centre has been guided in part by the recommendations of a review of BBSRC's bioenergy research portfolio, published in 2006.
The BBSRC says that sustainable bioenergy offers the potential to provide a significant source of clean, low carbon and secure energy, and to generate thousands of new 'green collar' jobs. It uses non-food crops, such as willow, industrial and agricultural waste products and inedible parts of crops, such as straw, and so does not take products out of the food chain.
The BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre will be focused on six research hubs of academic and industrial partners, based at each of the Universities of Cambridge, Dundee and York and Rothamsted Research and two at the University of Nottingham. Another 7 universities and institutes are involved and 15 industrial partners across the hubs are contributing around £7M of the funding.
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