The Roslin Institute is part of the UK's new ground-breaking livestock innovation centre

Funding for the Centre of Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIELivestock) will contribute to build a Large Animal Research and Imaging Facility (LARIF) on the Easter Bush Campus.

The Centre of Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIELivestock) has been allocated £27.7 million funding from the UK Government's Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to set up state-of-the-art facilities across the UK, providing the livestock industry with world-beating access to research. Additional funding from industry for projects in the Centre and investments by the participating research institutions will bring total investment to over £70 million.

The Roslin Institute is the largest recipient of funding and will receive £11.3M from CIELivestock's budget that will be put towards building a Large Animal Research and Imaging Facility (LARIF) on the Easter Bush Campus. This will be a unique and world-leading facility that will provide a quantum leap in infrastructure available to the animal sciences innovation pipeline in the UK. Phase 1 of LARIF will include specialised suites and equipment that will enable studies on large animal metabolism and infectious disease.

The Roslin Institute will receive funding to host CIELivestock's Informatics Hub, which will support livestock genomics and informatics, and provide training to individual breeders, farmers, recording and breeding companies in their delivery of genomic improvement.

In addition to The University of Edinburgh (The Roslin Institute), the universities of Leeds, Nottingham, Newcastle, Aberystwyth, Bristol, Queens (Belfast) and Harper Adams are receiving investment from CIELivestock, as well as some of the UK's leading research organisations including Rothamsted Research, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute Northern Ireland (AFBI), Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), Fera and Duchy College.

CIELivestock has been industry-led from its inception and is focussed on providing resources that will support the research needs of industry. Private sector companies and industry groups across the livestock and food industries that have been key to CIEL's development include the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Agrisearch, BSAS, BSAS Industry Association, Cranswick Country Food plc, Devenish Nutrition Ltd, Dunbia Ltd, ForFarmers UK Ltd, Origin Group Holdco Ltd, RAFT Solutions Ltd and XLVets UK Ltd, Tesco, Sainsbury, Zoetis, Genus plc, Aviagen, Cobb-Vantress, Zoetis, Alltech and AB Agri.

CIELivestock is part of a family of centres launched by the Government, which includes Agrimetrics, the Centre for Crop Health and Production (CHAPS) and Epi-Agri (EPI).

The formation of CIELivestock, and the matching investments by University of Edinburgh and SRUC will cement the world-leading position of the Easter Bush Campus in animal sciences research. The partnerships with industry and with other research organisations across the UK, will secure an effective path from discovery to translation, ultimately supporting new industries and benefiting UK livestock farmers.

More information: www.cielivestock.co.uk