More time for research support
Believe it or not the Bacterial Plant Diseases Programme has now completed the three years it was originally funded for. The programme was conceived as a way of bringing together 9 separate plant health projects (that were already funded) to help maximise cross-project collaboration, learning and impact.
The programme was due to end in June 2023 but, mainly due to COVID delays, almost all the projects have extensions that take them to March 2024. The final months of the projects are a crucial time for gathering evidence, sharing findings, and planning next steps. So, we are delighted that UKRI has been able to provide continuation funding for the over-arching Bacterial Plant Diseases Programme Coordination Team, also until March 2024.
This extra funding means that the Coordination Team can continue working with the project teams as they wrap up. Things we’ll be working on over the coming nine months include:
- Organising cross-project meetings to build relationships, share findings, learn from each other, and establish future collaborations and projects.
- Gathering evidence for impact cases studies which show how the projects have influenced the wider world.
- Creating a series of research summaries which highlight key findings and provide recommendations for stakeholders and disseminating them online and via events.
- Ensuring that project publications and accumulated knowledge are appropriately shared and archived to lay the foundations for future research.
For this final stage there will be a slight change in the Coordination Team. Due to other commitments, original Team Leader Sarah Green has had to step down. Mariella Marzano, also from Forest Research, who has been part of the team since the outset, will take over the Team Leader role.
The Coordination Team would like to thank all the projects teams, stakeholders and partners for their support along the journey so far and look forward to seeing what the next nine months holds.
