Levelling-up case study: Oxford Centre for Plant Science Innovation

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.

The centre was set up using £1.9m of funding from the government’s Local Growth Fund secured by OxLEP to establish a centre in Oxford city centre delivering jobs and apprenticeships for Oxfordshire and enabling the creation of spin-out companies.

Initial ambitions of the project set out to enable the University of Oxford to deliver at least nine full-time jobs three apprenticeships and nine student placements as well as the creation of at least two spin-out companies through the Centre.

Since the completion of the Centre last year it has produced spin-out Wild Biosciencewhich utilises its platform to harness wild solutions to deliver radically enhanced crop yields. The bioscience company currently employs 20 people with aims to increase this by the end of the year and has a purpose renovated building housing its labs and growth facilities in Milton Park Abingdon.

Wild Bioscience was the featured company in a Financial Times “Big Read” article The UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’

Funding has also grown the research of a second university spin-out company MoA (Modes of Action) Technology whose work building on fundamental biology from Oxford’s Department of Biologyhas seen the company set up the first systematic empirical search for new MoAs through 3 distinct discovery platforms.

The demand for farmers around the world to feed the growing population but with less environmental impact has never been higher – or 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.

MoA Technology with headquarters now based within Oxford Science Park – one of the most influential science and environments in the UK – recognises that in order for farmers to continue to produce required levels of food sustainably more effective herbicides are required to be used in more effective ways. Failing this farmers are likely to need to rely on more water and fertiliser use with devastating effects including erosiondeforestation and CO2 emissions worldwide.

MoA Technology currently employs 55 peoplewith plans and funding in place to increase this to 75 by the end of the year.

Further to this the company has grown research opening a second research facility in Yorkshire providing new R&D opportunities funding and jobs far further afield than its Oxfordshire origins.

At the end of last year MoA Technology opened the facility at the Stockbridge Technology Centre (STC) situated at Cawood between Leeds and York 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.

The expansion of this university spin-out offers a prime example as to how initial funding secured in R&D here in Oxfordshire can support levelling up ambitionsboosting productivity and spreading opportunity elsewhere in the UK.

Find out more on OxLEP’s capital programmes