A new research initiative, bringing together the UK's main public funder of bioscience research with 10 companies, has been launched to further the development of technologies required to produce chemicals through biorefining.
The Integrated Biorefinery Technologies Initiative (IBTI) Club is being led by the UK's main public funder of bioscience research - the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
BBSRC will be working with the Bioscience for Business Knowledge Transfer Network and the founder company members of the IBTI Club: Biocaldol, BP Biofuels UK, British Sugar, Croda, Danisco Genencor, Green Biologics, AHDB-HGCA, KWS UK, Syngenta and TMO Renewables.
The IBTI Club will award around £5m, a mixture of BBSRC funds and company contributions, to researchers who are attempting to maximise the yield of the biomass going into a biorefinery and the quality and quantity of product produced.
The IBTI Club will run for five years and will have two calls for proposals. The first call for research projects was made this week.
More information is available at: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/business/collaborative_research/industry_clubs/ibti
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