The merger of three of the existing Agri-Tech Centres into a single UK Agri-Tech Centre completed on 1 April 2024.
The Agricultural Engineering, Precision and Innovation Centre (Agri-EPI), Centre of Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) and the Centre for Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), established in 2013 with a remit to drive UK agricultural innovation, are integrated into a single organisation. The fourth Centre, Agrimetrics which focuses on industry data services, remains independent.
Then science minister George Freeman announced the proposed merger of the Centres last autumn, following an internal review of their future scope and structure. He believed a single Centre would be better placed to attract global research investment.
The new UK Agri-Tech Centre receives its core funding from Innovate UK but will also raise funds from commercial research partnerships. It will retain its expert staff and facilities from the legacy Centres and is to be led by chief executive Phil Bicknell, formerly CEO of CIEL, and a newly appointed executive leadership team.
“One of the major benefits of the new UK Agri-Tech Centre is that we have some of the best people from across the sectors working here and in our networks,” states chair of the UK Agri-Tech Centre board Dr Peter Quinn. “Our specialists can use their expertise collaboratively to focus on a solution, creating real-world usable products.
“Within ten to 15 years we will have to change our food production and supply chains significantly. The hardest bit is implementing commercial innovation, which can often take five to ten years. It takes endurance and resilience to trial biological work, to work with nature and the seasons which vary from one to the next. We have to focus on the prize. Becoming the UK Agri-Tech Centre increases the scope and speed at which we can work.”
Mr Bicknell adds: “We are launching the UK Agri-Tech Centre at a pivotal time. Agri-food is the bedrock of the UK’s largest manufacturing sector -a sector that is facing ongoing challenges around volatility, policy upheaval, input costs and environmental sustainability.
“The UK Agri-Tech Centre will make the most of the phenomenal opportunity to use science and innovation to lead and guide transformational change for the sector, for the benefit of humanity and the planet.”