CASE STUDY: The Oxford Centre for Plant Science Innovation – OxLEP investment boosts vital food production research

The Oxford Centre for Plant Science Innovation is the University of Oxford’s interconnected centre for research and development to address challenges in agriculture and forestry. 

As a county Oxfordshire benefits from significant levels of farmlandwith 74% of the county’s land cover made-up of farmlandaccording to Wild Oxfordshire.

The centre was set-up using £1909144 of funding from the government’s Local Growth Fund secured by OxLEP to establish a centre in Oxforddelivering jobs and apprenticeships for Oxfordshire and providing support to spin-out companies.

To give context to this investmentProfessor Chris Hawes (Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopy Society) had previously stated: “The importance of plants cannot be underestimated. We’re going to reach a population in the world of around nine billion by 2050. With this and the continued loss of agricultural land as a result of climate change it is predicted that agricultural production will have to double. Plants are the primary producers of the majority of our food so plant science research is vital.”

With challenges such as weeds becoming resistant to traditional herbicides the demand for farmers around the world to feed the growing population – but with less environmental impact – has never been higheror more challenging.

Herbicides with new modes of action (the way chemistry interacts with plant biology to inhibit weed growth) can break resistance and improve safety and sustainability.

Plant scientists at the Department of Biology within the University of Oxford also welcomed the introduction of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill to facilitate new approaches to increase crop production and food security and the launch of the Science for Sustainable Agriculture communications platform.

This Bill is an important and necessary step towards achieving sustainable agricultural and land management practices in the UK. (Professor Jane Langdale – the University of Oxford).

Outputs and outcomes of the project:

• The required outputs and outcomes have been achieved including the full refurbishment of a laboratory which now facilitates dedicated research into Agriculture Biotechnology.
• A total of 96 jobs and apprenticeships were created against a target of 31 with more expected as the spin out companies expand.
• With the assistance provided by the Local Growth FundOxford has become a centre of agricultural biotechnology innovation and established the expertise at the University of Oxford to commercialise in this sector.

Since the completion of the centre in 2020 it has also supported two spin-out organisations:

• Wild Biosciencewhich utilises its platform to harness wild solutions to deliver radically enhanced crop yields. The bioscience company currently employs 20 peoplewith aims to further increase this and has a purpose-renovated building housing its laboratories and growth facilities at Milton Park. Wild Science have raised in excess of £120000 of investment. 
• MoA (Modes of Action) Technology whose work building on fundamental biology from Oxford’s Department of Biology with their headquarters located at Oxford Science Parkhas seen the company set up the first systematic empirical search for new MoAs through three distinct discovery platforms. MoA Technology have raised in excess of £420000 of investment. Since receiving support from the University of Oxford through this projectMoA have significantly increased the number of staff employed to 55 and look to further increase this. At the end of 2021 MoA Technology opened a new facility at the Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC) situated at Cawood between Leeds and York (UK) utilising the pipeline of promising lead candidates flowing from the high throughput screening platforms at its Oxford headquartersto be tested in state-of-the-art glasshouses and on into field trials within this 75-hectare site on prime arable land.

Find out more on the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology

Find out more on OxLEP’s Local Growth Fund investment