National Activities - United Kingdom Renewable Materials LINK Programme

Website: defrafarmingandfoodscience.csl.gov.uk




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The New Renewable Materials LINK Programme Enhancing the use of renewable materials for sustainable development, sponsored by BBSRC and Defra, was launched on 3 November 2005.

LINK is a means by which the Government encourages collaborative research for innovative and industrially-relevant research to support its wealth creation and quality of life goals. Because of its relevance to industry and the collaborative nature of the work, this is an area which is given priority for sponsorship. Currently, Defra provides grants for approximately £5 Million of research per year to various consortia in five Farming and Food Science LINK programmes.

Research projects funded through LINK form an integral of the sustainable farming and food science R&D portfolio. Through LINK, Defra provides grants to consortia of the private sector and the research base to conduct research for industrial or private sector purposes aligned to Defra objectives.

In the joint Defra-DTI A Strategy for Non-food Crops and Uses: Creating Value from Renewable Materials, the Government committed to establishing a new LINK programme to co-finance private-sector led innovative, pre-commercial R&D investment. The Programme encourages investment in research and the exchange of knowledge between the private sector and the research base in furthering the non-food uses of renewable materials to support sustainable development. It is now in place for interested parties.

The Programme's objectives are five-fold:

• To develop improved manufacturing processes for extracting and isolating materials for products; to establish processes and develop new opportunities for the non-food uses of crops. Life cycle assessment and whole process modelling will be promoted to investigate the environmental impacts of the supply chains and systems.
• To identify and develop products from renewable materials with novel or improved functionality that make intelligent use of renewable resources, e.g. developing new crop traits or technologies for use of plant or animal feedstocks.
• To gain an understanding of supply chains to support their optimisation in the context of sustainable development.
• To generate information and knowledge needed to make informed decisions about the environmental sustainability of products derived from renewable materials, and their impact on ecosystem services and natural resource assets such as biodiversity, water resources, etc.
• To improve understanding of primary production and the associated impacts of land use, including cropping patterns/ rotations, soil and pest management, impacts on rural communities, etc.

For further information, please see the Guidance to Applicants section of the website.

Please note that the term "renewable materials" includes materials produced by agriculture of both plant and animal origin. While research on the novel non-food uses of forest and animal-derived materials, such as wool is supported (e.g. woven textiles), traditional uses of these materials fall outside the remit of the Programme.

The Renewable Materials LINK Programme is jointly sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).