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Academic partners

Associate partners

Plant Sciences

In 2020 LIDo substantially expanded its interface with sustainable agriculture as well as UK and global food security. We are excited to offer PhD opportunities for students interested in these areas that tackle global challenges induced by climate change in nutrition, food wastage, spoilage and nourishment degradation.

PhD students in LIDo will learn how to apply conventional and interdisciplinary science relevant to diverse areas of botany and plant sciences, by combining data-driven, systems, laboratory, and field approaches. In turn, students will benefit from exposure to the convergent capabilities and expertise of our academic and associate partners such as Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Animal & Plant Health Agency, and the Food Standards Agency.

Examples of project offered by LIDo investigate resilience in plants and livestock, control of pest behaviour and populations, engineered and bred resistance enhancement, post-harvest science and technology

Research in these areas benefit from our integrated strengths in biochemistry, biotechnology, microbiology, intersections between plant and animal genetics/genomics and breeding, coupled to bioinformatics, mathematical modelling and prediction.

Together research from these projects will impact many real world problems on the national and global level.
Plant Science @LIDo
Natural Resources Institute

The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) is a specialist research, development and education organisation of the University of Greenwich, UK, with a focus on food, agriculture, environment, and sustainable livelihoods.

Research activities cover basic plant science and biochemistry, viral and vector borne plant diseases, genetics of disease resistance, food systems and post-harvest technologies. Research is largely focussed on important crops in Africa. Additional areas of activity are insect vectors spreading human disease and in algal crops.

Read more about NRI and hear from some of their current PhD students here.

Plant Science @NRI
Royal Holloway, University of London

RHUL has an active research programme based on three major research centres:
Biomedical Sciences; Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour; and Plant Molecular Sciences. 

The Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour studies the way that organisms react, adapt and interact. It works with a range of living systems, from microbes to mammals, addressing long-standing and emergent biological problems. Since the foundation of the College in the 19th century, Royal Holloway has established a reputation for fundamental field-based research. Today those classical approaches are supported with state-of-the-art molecular and mathematical techniques. 

The Plant Molecular Sciences research centre focuses on producing seeds and food for the world using innovative yet simple methods, making an impact on what people eat.

Research projects include European Network Consortia and in plant Systems and Synthetic Biology in close collaboration with staff in the Department of Computer Science. The centre's research groups have collaboration projects with industrial and academic partners including Syngenta, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, KWS SAAT AG, CABI, John Innes Centre, Rothamsted Research and with other universities as well as research centres in Europe and world-wide. 

Plant Science @RHUL
APPLY TODAY

LIDo encourages applications from students with a plant science background for exciting projects across the consortium via both our DTP and iCASE route of entry. 

We are offering lots of relevant iCASE projects, please click here to see more details.