Research Project at BSPB available

Research Project - Building a Portfolio of Material on Plant Breeding Successes for BSPB's Communications Programme

Do you have a knowledge and understanding of crop improvement, an inquiring mind, great communication skills, a desire to make contacts and gain experience in the communication of science and the plant breeding industry and some time to spare in the next few months? If so, BSPB would like to hear from you.

BSPB is the representative association for the commercial plant breeding industry in the UK. Our 59 members are breeders and breeders’ agents for varieties of agricultural crops, vegetable seed for the professional market and amenity grass. Our main functions as a Society are licensing and royalty collection on certified and farm saved seed, the organisation of variety trials, representing our members on regulatory, technical and IP matters and communicating the role and importance of commercial plant breeding. We have recently revised our Communications strategy to address a broad audience, targeting particularly MPs and MEPs, other policy makers, regulators, R & D funders and royalty payers, including farmers who pay royalties on farm saved seed.

We want to develop a comprehensive portfolio of stories, articles, data, images and video clips about plant breeding developments including specific achievements and breakthroughs in a broad range of crops, information about the benefits of plant breeding developments to users, examples of success from collaborative R & D and examples of effective translation of R & D into practice. This material will form a resource for developing printed material, presentations and our new web site.

We wish to appoint someone, possibly a student, for 2 months to source and collect this material through a programme of visits to plant breeding companies, research organisations and others. We are looking for an individual who has technical knowledge of plant breeding and crop improvement, excellent communication skills, self-motivation and organisational ability who has their own car and is able to travel within the UK to carry out this project.

If you are interested contact Penny Maplestone at the BSPB (Tel 01353 653201)

www.bspb.co.uk