NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council plans to award around £2.5M ($4.2 million) in grants next year to fund development of new tools and resources for BBSRC's biotech and life sciences strategic focus areas.
The tools and resource grants will give up to £120,000 for up to 18 months to universities, research council institutes, and approved independent research organizations, BBSRC said yesterday.
The aim of the funded research should be to prime the pump for the next generation of tools, technologies, and resources that biology researchers will use, and to enhance research data sharing in scientific areas such as genetics, genomics, synthetic biology, and stem cell research.
BBSRC wants the funding to support applications that propose efforts that increase the use of high performance computing and data sharing in the biosciences.
The research should be focused on technology or on methods, and could include efforts in several areas, such as: early-stage development of new tools and resources; rapid exploitation of new technologies; improvement of existing tools and technologies, including software; making data sharing easier by developing community approaches, including developing standards for sharing; and development of software tools that enable interrogation, use, and interoperability of shared data sets.