The Pirbright Institute is committed to realising the economic and social benefit of its science and has developed a strong culture of translational research where understanding biological processes can lead to benefits in science, veterinary medicine, and policy.
There are some key approaches and principles applied:
- Knowledge is developed into valuable advice, tools and technologies
- Intellectual property is protected to encourage its use for the benefit of society
- The Institute collaborates and cooperates with end users of research
- Knowledge is protected and inventions are patented wherever appropriate
- Knowledge is shared through global training and professional development
- Knowledge is shared through workshops, meetings, conferences, and scientific publications
Commissions
The Institute develops vaccines and diagnostic kits and reagents that are commissioned by UK, European and World agencies for health and agriculture. These are often:
- On the basis of non-commercial endeavours
- Aimed purely at delivering a public good
Collaborative pre-commercial development
The Institute develops reagents, tools and new techniques for diagnosing viral diseases and for species specific research. This important work is done in-house, in collaboration with other research institutes, and via public-private partnerships. This means:
- Research stays ahead of new threats from viruses
- New diagnostic reagents, assays and kits can be developed where the commercial potential is unknown but the consequence of an unmonitored, uncontrolled outbreak could be devastating
- When the need arises, new products are developed and sold in house or licenced to companies for bespoke development on proprietary platforms as well as sales and distribution
Professional development
Institute scientists and students as well as visiting researchers and diagnosticians from academic institutions, government agencies, and commercial companies benefit from a range of educational access programmes.
- Specialist disease or discipline training programs such as bio-security
- Diagnostics training at Pirbright or in scientist’s home country
- Doctoral and masters programs
- Visiting scientist fellowships
- Formal qualifications supported by partnerships with UK universities as awarding bodies
Animal health professionals from around the world are trained by the Institute and disseminate knowledge and best practice in their home environment to improve disease control and animal welfare all over the world.
Global strategy
Improving control of exotic diseases that are endemic elsewhere in the world by:
- Developing appropriate tools, technology and policy advice
- Making state-of-the-art high containment facilities available to scientists who cannot study viruses of interest in their home countries
- Working to train and share best practice with scientists in less developed countries
Facilities and biological collections
- Access to facilities via contract research and services as well as public-private partnerships
- Archives of partially or fully characterised viruses
- Available to the animal health community for academic and commercial research
- Used in house to build understanding of viruses and to test diagnostic kits and assays