Plants for the 21st Century Institute

We generate scientific resources and information that will enable policy makers, conservation biologists, multinational companies and individuals to use land in a way that will maximise crop outputs and protect ‘hotspots’ of species diversity.

Ensuring food and fuel security around the world in the 21st century is a major challenge that requires innovative research in plant sciences.

We are unique in the way we bring together three pinnacles of food security: improving crop production, promoting species conservation, and protecting forested land.

The research data and insights from these programmes will alleviate global food security concerns by enabling more informed decision-making by the world’s leaders and opinion-formers.

Research themes

• Conservation: aims to provide innovative ways to capture, analyse and publicise the large volumes of plant diversity data that are needed to underpin conservation and wider environmental action.
• Crops: aims to increase crop yields and thereby alleviate global food security concerns.
• Trees: investigates how forests respond to both natural and human inflicted disturbance and uses the data obtained to inform policies for sustainable management.