microscope

Agricultural research is conducted by a range of organisations, from individual farmers, through advisors, distributors, manufacturers, charities, societies, supply chain companies, levy bodies, universities and research institutes.  This page aims to connect across these often disparate sources.

Help us describe the agricultural research landscape in the UK.  Some of the key organisations are listed below:

 

Funders Research Organisations Universities
UKRI Rothamsted Aberystwyth
BBSRC John Innes Aberdeen
NERC James Hutton Institute Cranfield
STFC CEH Edinburgh
Innovate UK IBERS Harper Adams
AHDB RR North Wyke Leeds
PGRO Pirbright Newcastle
BBRO CIEL Nottingham
Defra CHAP Reading
Scottish Govt Agri-EPI Sheffield
Welsh Govt Agrimetrics Bangor
DAERA NIAB RAU
TMAF BGS Lincoln
Soil Association Roslin Hertfordshire
Innovative Farmers   SRUC
AIC FERA Cambridge Crop Science Centre
AICC Organic Research Centre UCD
AFCP STC Oxford University
  ADAS  
  STRI  
  Agrii  
  Agrovista  
  Hutchinsons  
  Frontier  
  AICC  
     

 

Konfer is a useful web platform to find about research, researchers and funding opportunities. Zenodo connects research communities.

Many researchers use ResearchGate to share publications and projects.

All UKRI funded projects are listed on Gateway to Research

Defra projects are searchable at its Science & Projects site.

EU Farmbook is being developed to share outputs from all relevant EU & EIP-Agri projects.

 

Please add any organisations or useful resources that are missing in the comments below

Related Organisations

Content below is from across the PEP community and is not necessarily endorsed by Stewards or by PEP

Topic Comments

Discussion

Scottish Government, Welsh Government and DAERA should be included in the list of funders

1

Connected Content

Science for Sustainable Agriculture aims to ensure the positive contribution of scientific innovation in agriculture and food production is recognised in public life and policy making.

Innovative Farmers was established in 2012 by the Soil Association with the aim of bringing scientific rigour to on-farm trials co-designed by farmers and researchers. With a focus on sustainability and resilience, groups come together on discrete topics and on-farm trials addressing the topics that matter to them.

Farm-PEP aims to bring together all the sources of useful knowledge for Agriculture, whether from academic science, applied research projects, industry trials, farmers own trials or simple on-farm experience. Listed below are useful websites, organisations and websites that we know of.  Add any we've missed in the comments box or by adding as new content, or better still, as a new Group.  

The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs.

The Agricultural Universities Council (AUC-UK) is a collaboration of the UK universities with agricultural schools or departments. AUC-UK works together to coordinate our teaching and research, to make the biggest contribution we can to a resilient and sustainable future for agriculture, land management and food systems.

We deliver transformational projects to drive productivity and boost farming and supply chain businesses. We want the industry to thrive in a rapidly changing world and continue to produce high quality food, maintain our beautiful landscape and leave a legacy for generations to come. 

The Farming Innovation Programme is part of Defra’s investment in innovation, research and development. Defra is partnering with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) on the programme. 

Agrii harnesses the power of skilled agronomists and the best intelligence to deliver unrivalled expertise and support for sustainable and profitable farming systems in the UK. 

DEFRA funding in partnership with Innovate UK, which is looking to support farmers, growers, and foresters who have a bold, ambitious idea. 

The International Barley Hub is an initiative seeking to create a platform for the translation of barley research into economic, social, environmental and commercial impacts for the breeding, farming, malting, brewing, feed, food, health and related industries

Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) was established in 2012 through the merger of the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) with Barony, Elmwood and Oatridge Colleges. Through these institutions, we can trace our lineage back over 100 years.

Farm-centric research generally involves On-Farm Experimentation and may be better described as 'Farm Action Research', i.e. research conducted at least in part by and for beneficiaries who also farm. 

Rothamsted Research is a world-leading, non-profit research centre that focuses on strategic agricultural science to the benefit of farmers and society worldwide.

The British On-Farm Innovation Network   A network of farmers who carry out their own on-farm trials and share the results, seeking a scientifically robust way to progress farm practice.

As the UK's centre of excellence for peas and beans, the PGRO has a long and highly valued track record of providing authoritative, up to date information and project work based on solid, reliable research.

Funding available for research and knowledge exchange in the UK comes from a mix of public, industry and charitable sources

Slug-Resistant Wheat A project to explore the properties of Watkins 788, a landrace wheat believed to be resistant to slugs, never before been grown in the UK. 

Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing is an award winning independent publisher founded by Rob Burleigh and Francis Dodds in 2015. Our mission is to bring you the key research and latest trends to empower you to make a positive impact on sustainable agriculture, climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. More information at www.bdspublishing.com.  

We create diverse connections to drive positive change.

Thrive through change with the Royal Agricultural University

Inferring the right conclusions from field trials is important - how confident can you be that a result is 'real' rather than due to the underlying noise? As part of the Farm-PEP FIP project we are working with BGS to explore the best ways to communicate confidence, uncertainty, significance, probability and value with farmers and growers.

As a specialist postgraduate university, Cranfield’s world-class expertise, large-scale facilities and unrivalled industry partnerships are creating leaders in technology and management globally

The James Hutton Institute combines strengths in crops, soils and land use and environmental research, and makes a major contribution to the understanding of key global issues, such as food, energy and environmental security, and developing and promoting effective technological and management solutions to these.

Poster paper given at IFS 2022 by Daniel Kindred, Roger Sylvester-Bradley, Pete Berry and colleagues. Conventional routes to generating knowledge of ‘what works’ in agriculture have relied on (i) farmers developing their experiences and passing these on locally, and (ii) researchers conducting small plot experiments on a limited number of sites, analysing data and drawing conclusions in a more generic top-down fashion. The advent of (i) the internet enabling ideas and data to be shared widely and (ii) precision farming technologies enabling comparisons or trials by farms, provides the opportunity to interconnect the top-down approach with a more robust farm-centric bottom-up approach.

Delivering world-class science for our partners, for the future. Fera Science Ltd (Fera), pioneers in original thinking applied, driving innovative products and techniques to identify and detect emerging threats earlier across agri-food science.

Introducing Naturestimeline and Tony William Powell. Benchmarking Birds. A Freelance Contractor offering clients bespoke Avian conservation monitoring projects.  

Scientific paper looking at the relationships between scientists and farmers:

What web resources do you find useful to find and share knowledge?

An internationally excellent Research Institute” (REF, 2021). Shaping rural development policy and practice in the UK, Europe and further afield.

We are a world-leading independent research organisation providing objective, expert geoscientific data, information and knowledge.

As the population grows, so do our demands on the planet. Managing this resource has never been so important. Since it was founded in 1901, Harper has been designed to meet this challenge. Set on a 494 hectare farm, we are the leading specialist university tackling the future development of our planet's food production, processing, animal sciences, engineering, land management and sustainable business.

Many of the most telling innovations that make a difference on-farm come from farmers themselves, or from close collaboration between farmers, advisors, industry and researchers

The UK's best-read arable journal

Following the TRUE and LegValue EU projects this LinkedIn group with over 100 members continues to share resources for those interested in legume crops,

The Organic Research Centre (ORC) is the UK's leading independent organic research organisation. Changing the future of food and farming.

Silsoe Spray Application Unit is an experienced internationally recognised facility for research, development and bespoke testing, relating to the characterisation of sprays and spray behaviour, with particular expertise in the application of agricultural pesticides.

Guidance from ADAS Agronomics on how best to conduct Line Trials on farm.  

We bring together bright young researchers and the most eminent in their fields. We stimulate and support their work. Then we celebrate the breakthrough ideas that emerge, and the difference they make to the world.

The MGA is independently run "by growers for growers".  The farmer led council commissions research on maize and wholecrop agronomy, utilisation and environmental issues.  The results of this work alongside knowledge picked up elsewhere are quickly transferred to members via regular mailings, demonstration sites, conferences and study tours.  

Report by Lord Curry (Food & Farming Futures), James Lowenburg-DeBoer and Michael Lee (Harper Adams University) into how agricultural science and extension can be supported and co-ordinated to address the productivity gap in UK agriculture.    

Innovate UK and BBSRC announce new £16 million competition to drive forward novel, resource efficient, low-emission food production systems.

Five farming businesses, progressing through data analysis and knowledge exchange, to enhance the productive, financial and ecological results of our farming.

Series of articles in CPM reporting results from research projects by AHDB & others

TALISMAN and SCARAB were long-term projects developed to follow on from issues raised in the Boxworth project. TALISMAN focused on the economic issues of reducing pesticide and fertiliser use, whilst SCARAB examined the ecological side-effects of pesticides.

It’s worth reflecting on why we export most of the pulse crop we produce in the UK, or simply fee

For the first time, universities across the UK have come together t

The Morley Agricultural Foundation is a charity that supports farming in the East of England by funding agricultural research, student studies, professional development of farmers and others and a variety of educational projects for school age children.

Innovation in agriculture refers to the development and implementation of new ideas, technologies, and practices in the agricultural sector.

The Agriculture Knowledge & Innovation System

A wide range of EU funded projects and networks contribute to the knowledge landscape in agriculture.

  https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/north-wyke-farm-platform

EU FarmBook is a collection of vetted best practices for farmers & foresters. All content in the library is provided by Horizon research projects. 

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Food Network+ (SFN) brings together STFC researchers and facilities with research and industry in the agri-food sector.

A TOOLKIT FOR BREEDING RESISTANCE TO ADULT AND LARVAL HERBIVORY BY THE CABBAGE STEM FLEA BEETLE. BBSRC Industrial Partnership project led by Rachel Wells at JIC looking to breed oilseed rape with resistance to CSFB.

Put Science into Practice

Independent advice, tailored to farmers and horticulturists, tested and validated in practice. We conduct practice-oriented research in function of profitable innovations in West Flanders agriculture and horticulture.

Scientific Paper by Rob Bramley, Simon Cook and colleagues in 'Agronomy for Sustainable Development' 2022.

A joint AFCP and NIAB event exploring what research is needed by farmers and stakeholders.  Hear from researchers looking at cover crops for soil structure and health; fungus and plant nutrient exchange; alleviating subsoil compaction; and more.

Innovate UK KTN helps organisations interested in AgriFood innovation access the expert informati

Write whatever you want here - this is the main section. You can add links, add pictures and embed videos. To paste text from elsewhere use CTRL+Shift+V to paste without formatting. Add videos by selecting 'Full HTML' below, copying the 'embed html' from the source page (eg Youtube), clicking 'Source' above and pasting where you want the video to appear.
You can upload an image here. It can be jpg, jpeg, gif or png format.
Upload requirements

You can upload a file here, such as a pdf report, or MS Office documents, Excel spreadsheet or Powerpoint Slides.

Upload requirements
Authors Order
Add Authors here - you can only add them if they already exist on PEP. Just start writing their name then select to add it. To add multiple authors click the 'Add another item' button below.

Please ensure that you have proof-read your content. Pages are not edited further once submitted and will go live immediately.

Configure the meta tags below.

Use tokens to avoid redundant meta data and search engine penalization. For example, a 'keyword' value of "example" will be shown on all content using this configuration, whereas using the [node:field_keywords] automatically inserts the "keywords" values from the current entity (node, term, etc).

Browse available tokens.

Simple meta tags.

The text to display in the title bar of a visitor's web browser when they view this page. This meta tag may also be used as the title of the page when a visitor bookmarks or favorites this page, or as the page title in a search engine result. It is common to append '[site:name]' to the end of this, so the site's name is automatically added. It is recommended that the title is no greater than 55 - 65 characters long, including spaces.
A brief and concise summary of the page's content, preferably 150 characters or less. Where as the description meta tag may be used by search engines to display a snippet about the page in search results, the abstract tag may be used to archive a summary about the page. This meta tag is no longer supported by major search engines.

Meta tags that might not be needed by many sites.

Geo-spatial information in 'latitude; longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958; -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Geo-spatial information in 'latitude, longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958, -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Robots
A comma-separated list of keywords about the page. This meta tag is used as an indicator in Google News.
Highlight standout journalism on the web, especially for breaking news; used as an indicator in Google News. Warning: Don't abuse it, to be used a maximum of 7 times per calendar week!
This meta tag communicates with Google. There are currently two directives supported: 'nositelinkssearchbox' to not to show the sitelinks search box, and 'notranslate' to ask Google not to offer a translation of the page. Both options may be added, just separate them with a comma. See meta tags that Google understands for further details.
Used to rate content for audience appropriateness. This tag has little known influence on search engine rankings, but can be used by browsers, browser extensions, and apps. The most common options are general, mature, restricted, 14 years, safe for kids. If you follow the RTA Documentation you should enter RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA
Indicate to search engines and other page scrapers whether or not links should be followed. See the W3C specifications for further details.
Tell search engines when to index the page again. Very few search engines support this tag, it is more useful to use an XML Sitemap file.
Control when the browser's internal cache of the current page should expire. The date must to be an RFC-1123-compliant date string that is represented in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), e.g. 'Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:12:56 GMT'. Set to '0' to stop the page being cached entirely.

The Open Graph meta tags are used to control how Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social networking sites interpret the site's content.

The Facebook Sharing Debugger lets you preview how your content will look when it's shared to Facebook and debug any issues with your Open Graph tags.

The URL of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Should not be used if og:image:url is used. Note: if multiple images are added many services (e.g. Facebook) will default to the largest image, not specifically the first one. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The URL of an video which should represent the content. For best results use a source that is at least 1200 x 630 pixels in size, but at least 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum. Object types supported include video.episode, video.movie, video.other, and video.tv_show. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically.
A alternative version of og:image and has exactly the same requirements; only one needs to be used. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The secure URL (HTTPS) of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly. Any URLs which start with "http://" will be converted to "https://".
The type of image referenced above. Should be either 'image/gif' for a GIF image, 'image/jpeg' for a JPG/JPEG image, or 'image/png' for a PNG image. Note: there should be one value for each image, and having more than there are images may cause problems.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format. Can be the same as the 'Article modification date' tag.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.
The date this content will expire, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.

A set of meta tags specially for controlling the summaries displayed when content is shared on Twitter.

Notes:
  • no other fields are required for a Summary card
  • Photo card requires the 'image' field
  • Media player card requires the 'title', 'description', 'media player URL', 'media player width', 'media player height' and 'image' fields,
  • Summary Card with Large Image card requires the 'Summary' field and the 'image' field,
  • Gallery Card requires all the 'Gallery Image' fields,
  • App Card requires the 'iPhone app ID' field, the 'iPad app ID' field and the 'Google Play app ID' field,
  • Product Card requires the 'description' field, the 'image' field, the 'Label 1' field, the 'Data 1' field, the 'Label 2' field and the 'Data 2' field.
A description that concisely summarizes the content of the page, as appropriate for presentation within a Tweet. Do not re-use the title text as the description, or use this field to describe the general services provided by the website. The string will be truncated, by Twitter, at the word to 200 characters.
By default Twitter tracks visitors when a tweet is embedded on a page using the official APIs. Setting this to 'on' will stop Twitter from tracking visitors.
The URL to a unique image representing the content of the page. Do not use a generic image such as your website logo, author photo, or other image that spans multiple pages. Images larger than 120x120px will be resized and cropped square based on longest dimension. Images smaller than 60x60px will not be shown. If the 'type' is set to Photo then the image must be at least 280x150px. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The MIME type for the media contained in the stream URL, as defined by RFC 4337.