BBSRC-NRF: Newton-Utafiti (UK-Kenya) fund call in enhancing ruminant livestock productivity, Apr 2018

Closing date: 10 April 2018

 

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in the UK and the National Research Fund (NRF) in Kenya are pleased to announce a joint call for collaborative research under the Newton-Utafiti Fund programme. This call will focus on tackling challenges relevant to ruminant livestock production in Kenya.

 

The call will support short term projects of up to 12 months in duration starting on 1 October 2018, awarded to a maximum of £100K (80% FEC) in the UK and up to £50K (KES 6,903,288.54) in Kenya. BBSRC and NRF are looking to support 3 to 4 projects to establish new, or build on existing collaborations and envisage a balanced partnership in terms of research effort. The funds for successful projects must be spent between October 2018 and September 2019.

 

It is envisaged that further BBSRC-NRF joint calls under the Newton-Utafiti Fund will in future years be run following a similar timeline and funding model to this call, but focussing on a different scientific topic relevant to enhancing food security in Kenya.

 

This programme is focussed on improving farmed animal health and production in ruminants and managed camelids of relevance to Kenya. 

Proposals should investigate one or more of the following priority areas:

Animal physiology and nutrition

  • Investigating the bioavailability of key nutrients in animal feed and feed conversion efficiency
  • Understanding how nutrition improves resilience to disease and reduction of disease risk, including the effect of the microbiome
  • Investigating challenges to livestock fertility, reproduction, including conditions which affect these
  • Understanding how animals in arid and semi-arid environments are able to adapt to climatic challenges

Vector borne animal disease and epidemiology

  • Understanding pest/ disease pathogenesis in ruminants and camelids, including vector-borne disease
  • Understanding the genetic basis of host resistance in ruminants and camelids
  • Understanding transmission mechanisms between host species including transmission dynamics and biological factors affecting transmission

 

Your application needs to build on existing partnerships, ideally enhancing past RCUK or NRF investments. Applications should also clearly indicate how the research outcomes will contribute towards one (or more) of the current areas of focus of the Government of Kenya (food security, universal health care, or manufacturing and agro-processing).

 

While they cannot receive funding, we would like to encourage the involvement of international research institutes based in Kenya (i.e. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)) and / or industry partners, (e.g. farming, breeding and the agricultural supply industry) where appropriate.

 

Research topics that are excluded from this call are as follows:

  • Pigs, poultry and aquaculture species are excluded from the scope for this call. 
  • Wild animal species, including species hunted for food are also not in scope.
  • Viral diseases
  • Vaccine development including basic research involved in antigen identification, candidate antigen immunogenicity studies, vaccine formulation/manufacturing, vaccine delivery methods and field trials.
  • Data collection, surveillance and sampling projects without significant research underpinning a biological hypothesis
  • Breeding for non-climatic production traits, and yield increases
  • Pathogen-focused studies without the appropriate host-pathogen research
  • Sequencing-based projects not driven by significant research underpinning a biological hypothesis
  • Forage and feed crop focused research, unless there are the appropriate animal studies to measure the effects of forage/feed on animal health and disease reduction
  • Anti-microbial resistance both how it arises, and mechanisms of resistance and transmission of resistance genes within the host or on-farm, including the development of AMR in the gut and the development of novel anti-microbials
  • Wild animals as disease reservoirs, of farmed animal diseases
  • Zoonoses which only significantly affect the human host.
  • Animal models of human health and nutrition

 

Eligibility:

Collaborative applications are invited from UK and Kenya-based researchers eligible to receive funding as Principal Investigator from BBSRC and NRF respectively. For this Newton Fund call, BBSRC will support the project costs for successful UK applicants, whilst NRF will support the project costs for successful Kenya-based applicants.

 

For the full call text please visit the BBSRC grant call webpage.

 

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