Major funding to train the next generation of researchers driving the green economy

Posted on Thursday 18 December 2025

The investment by UKRI will support doctoral students to develop their skills in engineering biology, a transformative technology with the potential to drive a prosperous and sustainable future. 

Skills development

Plant BioDesign: Engineering Plant Systems for a Green Economy will provide postgraduate researchers with technical, leadership, entrepreneurial and communications skills in projects which advance progress in plant systems biodesign.

The programme is designed to put students in the best possible position to apply engineering biology to solve real world problems in clean growth, resilient food systems and environmental sustainability.

Professor Katherine Denby is leading the programme along with partners at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol and the John Innes Centre. 

She said: “This exciting doctoral training programme will build skills and deliver new research and innovation using plants to build a sustainable bioeconomy. Plants can be used in many ways, for example as biofactories, replacing chemical synthesis with products made in plants; we can use plants to extract rare earth metals or remove pollutants from soil; and we can reprogramme plants to be more disease resistant or have increased yield under our changing climate.”

Industry engagement

Plant Biodesign will build a new community of plant engineering biologists across the UK who will have not only technical and scientific knowledge, but skills in industry engagement and entrepreneurship, knowledge of policy frameworks and the ability and networks to converse with ethicists, policy-makers and the general public about the challenges and opportunities for engineered plants.”

Plant BioDesign recruitment is underway for the first entrants - PhD projects and more information on the programme can be found here.