OXFORD University has been awarded £12.5m to help train bioscience researchers in the health and food industries.

The money will support up to 180 students over the next five years as part of the Oxford Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).

Business Secretary Vince Cable announced the investment, which was from government cash via the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

He said: “The UK is a world leader in this field and we want to remain at the head of it. Looking to the longer-term beyond this immediate economic crisis, Britain is going to have to develop what I call an industrial strategy, working with some of our core industries where Britain is a world leader and it’s areas like aerospace, motor vehicles and life sciences.

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“The money that we’re putting into this work in life sciences will strengthen those industries and keep Britain ahead of the field, and will lead to exports and to jobs.”

The funding will help work on improving crop yields, developing new vaccines for animal diseases and tissue engineering for transplants.

University spokesman Pete Wilton said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for us to enhance bioscience doctoral training in Oxford and across Oxfordshire.

“The university has over 270 researchers working in bioscience and related fields and the Interdisciplinary Bioscience DTP will involve staff from over a dozen departments.”

Oxford University is one of several universities to get funding, including Cambridge, Warwick, London Imperial and Edinburgh. In total the BBSRC is giving £125m.

An executive director at the BBSRC, Dr Celia Caulcott, said: “Bioscience is having a massive impact on many aspects of our lives.

“BBSRC is paving the way for an explosion in new economic sectors and bioscience that will change the way we live our lives in the 21st century.”

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