A new strategic research programme, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), aims to catalyse the UK research and innovation community to use multi-disciplinary approaches to engineer next generation veterinary vaccine technology platforms.

While research funded through this programme will develop vaccines for livestock and aquaculture and to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the scope of the programme is disease-agnostic.

The programme will fund research consortia comprising cross-sector partnerships of academia, industry (through subcontracting), and where appropriate government agencies (for example: if working on statutory disease linked to reference laboratories).

Applications are invited from UK-based organisations that meet BBSRC’s standard eligibility conditions, including:

• Higher education institutions.
• Independent research organisations.
• Approved public sector research establishments.
• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)-funded labs and facilities.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to include early career researcher and research technical professionals to be in funded projects. At least one co-lead must be an early career researcher. Partnerships with relevant government agencies is strongly encouraged, but not mandatory.

Projects will be selected for funding jointly by BBSRC and Defra. The 100% FEC of a project can be £3 million to £4 million. BBSRC will fund 80% of the FEC and is aiming to support to three consortia fostering a One Health approach addressing the unmet need in veterinary vaccinology.