STRATEGY FOR AGRICULTURAL, BIOLOGICAL AND RELATED RESEARCH 1999-2003 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 This is the third Annual Report on progress on implementation of SEERAD's Strategy for Agricultural, Biological and Related Research 1999-2003. Background to the Strategy, and progress in the first two years of its implementation, were set out in the first and second Annual Reports (see Annex 1).
1.2 During 2001-02 core funding for research at SAC and the Scottish Agricultural and Biological Research Institutes (SABRIs) amounted to £33.5m. In addition SAC received £11.8m grant-in-aid for its education and advisory service activities, and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh received £5.4m recurrent grant-in-aid for its work on botanical collections, research and public amenity and education. In addition, research contracts totalling £6.3m were funded from the Department's Flexible Fund.
1. SAC is the Scottish Agricultural College. The SABRIs are the Hannah Research institute (HRI), the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (MLURI), the Moredun Research Institute (MRI), the Rowett Research Institute (RRI) and the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) including Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS).
1.3 Significant developments during 2001-02 in implementing the Research Strategy 1999-2003 were:
- a redistribution of part of the core funding through a competition for "outer core" allocations, worth £6m over two and a half years;
- the publication and implementation of a Genomics Strategy for SEERAD and its sponsored bodies;
- further shifts in the end-use relevance of the programme, particularly to human health (now 18% of the programme);
- significant increases in the policy relevance of the core programmes of the sponsored bodies (up from 25% to 46% over three years);
- a major Flexible Fund competition for collaborative research, worth £3.3m;
- further developments and successes in the commercialisation of SEERAD-funded research;
- the launch of a major interactive science exhibition;
- strong progress towards the goals for the use of the Flexible Fund (increased competition for funds, widening of contractor base, increased policy relevance).
1.4 The remainder of this Third Annual Report is set out under each of the five main Objectives of the Research Strategy. The Report includes a preliminary analysis of the programme in 2002-03, this having been prepared and commissioned during 2001-02.