UKCMRI: launch of science vision and new building designs
19 June 2010
Links UKCMRI - Scientific vision and research strategy (PDF) UKCMRI - Design briefing (PDF) A consortium of the UK's most prestigious scientific and academic institutions has laid out its plans for the biggest centre for biomedical research and innovation in Europe.
The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI). °×С½ãÂÛ̳ is one of the four founding partners for the venture,along with the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust. The consortium today released its vision for the institute alongside designs for the building dubbed a 'cathedral for science'. UKCMRI will be based at St Pancras and Somers Town in the London Borough of Camden.
The vision was
drafted by a panel of leading international scientists who came together to conceive
of an institute capable of tackling the underlying causes of our most
challenging health problems.
They were advised by experts from Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, the US National Institutes of Health and other world-renowned institutions, as well as biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry leaders.
The building, planned by a team led by the architects HOK working closely with PLP Architecture, is designed to foster innovation by allowing collaboration between different academic disciplines.
Click on the player below to see a fly-through of the building design
The chairman of the Scientific Planning
Committee - the Nobel Laureate and President of Rockefeller University, New
York and incoming President of the Royal Society - Sir Paul Nurse, explained:
"UKCMRI aims to break down the traditional barriers between different research
teams within institutes and between disciplines, encouraging biologists,
clinician scientists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists to work together to answer shared questions. With 1250 scientists working with an encompassing infrastructure,
UKCMRI will provide the critical mass, support and unique environment to tackle
difficult research questions."
Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of °×С½ãÂÛ̳, said: "°×С½ãÂÛ̳ is fully committed to UKCMRI as one of its founding partners. All four partners are major UK scientific institutions and bringing them together will be a major step forward for UK medical research. UKCMRI will be sited at the heart of a cluster of London's leading scientific, academic and hospital institutions. This brings numerous benefits locally as well as nationally and we anticipate that UKCMRI will be a vital catalyst for jobs and regeneration in Camden."
Key facts:
1500 staff, including 1250 scientists
Annual budget of over £100m
Initial investment of £600m (breakdown)
3.5 acres of land
79,000 square metres of building
Timeline:
Summer 2010 - planning application
Early 2011 - Construction starts
2015 - Construction ends
2015 - Science begins
Image: Design of the atrium of the UK Centre for Medical and Research Innovation
°×С½ãÂÛ̳ context
As an international centre of
excellence
in biomedicine, °×С½ãÂÛ̳ collaborates with many other universities,
hospitals, biomedical research charities and research centres.
°×С½ãÂÛ̳ has wide-ranging and long-standing relationships with all of the partners in UKCMRI. As well as the sponsorship of individual researchers and research studies, all three of °×С½ãÂÛ̳'s partners co-run centres at °×С½ãÂÛ̳, including the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at °×С½ãÂÛ̳, the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology and the Cancer Research UK & °×С½ãÂÛ̳ Cancer Trials Centre.
°×С½ãÂÛ̳ is also a founding partner of Europe's largest academic health science centre. °×С½ãÂÛ̳ Partners, designated one of the UK's first academic health science centres in March 2009 by the Department of Health, comprises five of London's biggest and best known hospitals and research centres: °×С½ãÂÛ̳, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust and °×С½ãÂÛ̳ Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (°×С½ãÂÛ̳H). Together they will conduct cutting-edge research into infectious diseases; neurological disorders; eyes and vision; child health; women's health; and immunology and transplantation
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