News › New Chief Executive joins UK's leading bioscience funder

Professor Douglas Kell

1 October 2008

Professor Douglas Kell has today started as the new Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the UK's leading funding agency for academic research and training in the non-clinical life sciences. Rothamsted Research is sponsored by the BBSRC.

Speaking in an interview for the BBSRC website, Prof Kell, said: “Having had funding from BBSRC over almost all of its remit over the years I have a broad interest in taking forward the kind of science that BBSRC has been sponsoring for a long time. Having been fortunate enough to be chosen to be Chief Executive, I’m really looking forward to this once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The interview in full, where Prof Kell speaks about his thoughts on taking over the leadership of BBSRC, is available to watch and to download from here.

Prof Kell succeeds Prof Julia Goodfellow, who left BBSRC in September 2007 to take up the role of Vice-Chancellor at the University of Kent. Steve Visscher has been serving as Interim Chief Executive during the intervening period. Prof Kell said: “I am fortunate to be following Julia and Steve who both worked hard and effectively to put BBSRC in a tremendous position to exploit bioscience opportunities in the future. Julia was instrumental in placing predictive and systems biology at the centre of BBSRC’s strategy five years ago, a move that was highly prescient. Steve has steered the Council through a period of great change over the last year and played a key role in helping to secure a good settlement for the biosciences in the last spending review.”

Prof Kell was previously Professor of Bioanalytical Science at the University of Manchester and Director of the BBSRC-funded Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology. He has a long association and involvement with BBSRC and BBSRC science. He has been a member of BBSRC Council and served on a number of further panels and boards for the Research Council. This included chairing a key review of BBSRC bioenergy research in 2006.

Contacts

› BBSRC Media Office
Matt Goode, Tel: 01793 413299 » matt.goode@bbsrc.ac.uk

Notes to Editors

Prof Kell’s appointment was announced by the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (DIUS) in July. The appointment is for four years and followed open competition.

Prof Kell was born in London in 1953. He is married with three children. Prof Kell studied at the University of Oxford and then conducted research at Aberystwyth University. He joined UMIST in 2002, which merged with the Victoria University of Manchester to form The University of Manchester in 2004.

BBSRC releases videos on a range of research and policy stories. View them all at http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media or watch and subscribe for future videos by visiting the BBSRC YouTube channel: http://uk.youtube.com/user/bbsrcmedia

Rothamsted Research Press Office

For further information, please contact Darren Hughes, Head of Communications, on +44 (0) 1582 763 133 ext 2673, email darren.hughes@rothamsted.ac.uk

Rothamsted is the longest running agricultural research station in the world, providing cutting-edge science and innovation for nearly 170 years. Our mission is to deliver the knowledge and new practices to increase crop productivity and quality and to develop environmentally sustainable solutions for food and energy production. Our strength lies in our integrated, multidisciplinary approach to research in plant and soil science.

Rothamsted Research receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) . It is the longest running agricultural research station in the world, developing environmentally sustainable solutions for food and energy production through science and innovation for nearly 170 years.

About BBSRC

BBSRC is the UK funding agency for research in the life sciences and the largest single public funder of agriculture and food-related research.

Sponsored by Government, BBSRC's budget for 2011-12 is around £445M which it is investing in a wide range of research that makes a significant contribution to the quality of life in the UK and beyond and supports a number of important industrial stakeholders, including the agriculture, food, chemical, healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.

BBSRC provides institute strategic research grants to the following:

The Babraham Institute, Institute for Animal Health, Institute for Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (Aberystwyth University), Institute of Food Research, John Innes Centre, The Genome Analysis Centre, The Roslin Institute (University of Edinburgh) and Rothamsted Research.

The Institutes conduct long-term, mission-oriented research using specialist facilities. They have strong interactions with industry, Government departments and other end-users of their research.

For more information see: www.bbsrc.ac.uk