The John Innes Centre (JIC) Norwich (1) has announced today that changes in non-government science funding and increased costs have forced a re-structuring of the Centre to ensure its long term sustainability as the UK’s flagship research centre in plant and microbial science.

Professor Chris Lamb (JIC Director) said “a significant shortfall in our income, compared to expenditure (2), has developed over the last 18 months depleting our reserves. Our position will worsen if we do not take action now. The main contributing factors are changes in non-government sources for science funding and increases in certain operating costs. JIC also needs to provide funds for investment in our infrastructure, for new research opportunities and to rebuild our reserves. Although this year we have made one-off and recurring savings of over £400,000, and have further savings of almost £500,000 planned for 2005/06, this will not be sufficient to correct the situation. Regrettably, this essential re-structuring could result in up to 35 science-grade post losses at JIC. We will work with staff to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies”.

Two significant contributors to JIC income are industrial partners and the European Union, and recently both have become less reliable sources of funding (3). At the same time there have been above the rate of inflation increases in many costs (4) including power, insurance, and rates. The planned re-structuring will also allow us to rebuild depleted reserves and invest in infrastructure and new research necessary to ensure the future success and long-term sustainability of the Institute.

Additional savings will be achieved by merging appropriate administration and support services of JIC with those of the neighbouring Institute of Food Research (5). As these organisations are both grant-aided by the BBSRC, have similar employment terms and conditions and operating procedures, conduct complementary research in some areas and already share some resources this will allow efficiency gains and strengthen essential services.

JIC and IFR management and unions are working closely together to minimise the detrimental impact of this re-structuring on their staff.

“This painful course of action will secure the long term sustainability of JIC as a world leading research institute” said Professor Lamb. “It should not be interpreted as a crisis for the Centre as it will aid, not hinder, the long term viability of JIC. Over the next 5-8 years we expect the funding situation to again move in our favour, but an anticipated improvement in income does not allow us to deal with the present situation”.

BACKGROUND

1. John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich, UK is an independent, world-leading research centre in plant and microbial sciences. JIC has over 800 staff and students. JIC carries out high quality fundamental, strategic and applied research to understand how plants and microbes work at the molecular, cellular and genetic levels. JIC also trains scientists and students, collaborates with many other research laboratories and communicates its science to end-users and the general public. JIC is grant-aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

2. The shortfall in income over expenditure, on an annual budget of £21M, is such that JIC management is seeking total savings of £1.6M p.a. to redress the balance, meet additional cost pressures, provide headroom for new science, replenish reserves and provide for investment in infrastructure.

3. Income from non BBSRC sources has halved in the last three years, this represents a loss of almost £3M income to JIC. The main causes have been reductions in industrial and EU income.

Consolidation of plant breeding and agri-technology companies in the last 8 years has reduced the overall number of funding sources in this area. The new larger companies have shifted their resources into a few very large acreage crops and reduced the amount of research conducted out-of-house, contributing to the funding squeeze.

European Union science research funding (relevant to JIC) is organised in so-called Framework programmes that run for 4-5 years. Each Framework programme has a particular emphasis and recent programmes have been largely targeted at areas outside JIC’s expertise (medicine for example) placing us at a disadvantage in competing for funding.

4. Costs associated with increased redundancy entitlement have arisen from recent changes in employment conditions governing the use of temporary contracts.

5. The Institute of Food Research (IFR) and the John Innes Centre (JIC) have each been reviewing their administrative and support service provision. As part of this process, the two Institutes have also started a joint review of their non-science services (April 2005). The review will not only identify ways to share support facilities and personnel, but also advise the Institutes on development of key support activities. The organisations will aim for a cost saving of around 8-9% of their combined budget of £11M, for their overall administrative and support services costs, from this process. The project will be carried forward by an Executive Board, with the support of an independent, external review panel that will report its findings to the JIC and IFR directors by early May 2005.

Timescales:

April: Announcement of re-structuring, consultation with staff and call for volunteers for redundancy. Joint project team established to plan structure and staffing of merged JIC/IFR admin and support services

May-June: Further consultation with staff on science post losses and procedures for establishment of joint services for JIC and IFR. Notices to science staff at risk of redundancy and decisions on structure and staffing of merged administration and support services, followed by further consultation with staff on implementation and staffing consequences and efforts to identify alternative employment for staff at risk of redundancy.