Annual Report for the year ended 31st March 2019 Registered charity number: 223852 Registered company number: 00511709 ANNUAL REPORT ANNUAL REPORT Contents Trustees’ Report including Trustees’ Report including the Strategic Report the Strategic Report Introduction to the Annual Report 03 The Board of Trustees of John Innes Centre (Governing Council) presents its Annual Achievements and Highlights 05-19 Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2019. The Annual Report provides details of the John Innes Centre’s objectives, achievements, scientific Future Plans 20 and financial performance in the year, future plans, risk management and its governance and management structure. Financial Review 21-22 Risk Assessment and Management 23 About us • To use a wide range of contemporary Structure, Governance and Management 25-28 The John Innes Centre (JIC) is an independent, approaches to develop dialogue with policy world-leading international centre of excellence makers and the public. Independent Auditor’s Report 29-30 in plant science and microbiology. Our mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes • To train the scientific leaders of the future Dr Will West Financial Statements 31-50 through innovative research, to apply knowledge in a broad range of scientific and Chair – Governing Council & to benefit agriculture, the environment, human transferable skills. Remuneration Committee Charity Information 51 health, and well-being, to train scientists for the future and engage with policy makers and the Our impact public. The John Innes Centre’s research spans the spectrum from new discoveries in fundamental Our strategy science to strategic applications to deliver The John Innes Centre’s key strategic aims are: practical outcomes. • To deliver world leading research and to The expertise of John Innes Centre scientists develop opportunities for innovative and has made important contributions to industry long-term research in plant and microbial and society in the UK and world-wide. These sciences. A central principle of John Innes include: the discovery and application of Centre’s research is the use of genetics, conserved gene order in grasses for cereal continuing the long and prestigious history improvement; the characterisation of the of genetics at the JIC. dominant dwarfing phenotype that underpins improved wheat crop productivity; the • To translate research in the areas of yield understanding and application of flowering and quality in crop plants, the use of time; contributing to the first sequencing of microbial and plant products to promote a plant genome and the development of human health and the use of plants and genomic systems for exploiting Streptomyces, microbes in industrial biotechnology. the principal source of anti-infectives for human health. • To use novel genetic approaches to generate new varieties and strains of plants and An independent impact evaluation estimated microbes that can be used to further that John Innes Centre contributes £14 back to knowledge and to enhance productive and the UK economy for every £1 invested and the biotechnological capacity. research into wheat yield improvements and reducing cereal diseases could be worth £4.3bn • To apply modern biotechnology to at a global level. agriculture in an environmentally-sustainable context. (Source: Brookdale Consulting, June 2018) John Innes Centre (‘JIC’) is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. The Annual Report provides information on the legal purposes of the charity, the activities it undertakes and its main achievements. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act 2011, the Companies Act 2006, the Memorandum and Articles of Association, and Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015). 2 Annual Report | Year ended 31 March 2019 John Innes Centre 3 ANNUAL REPORT ANNUAL REPORT Contents Trustees’ Report including Trustees’ Report including the Strategic Report the Strategic Report Introduction to the Annual Report 03 The Board of Trustees of John Innes Centre (Governing Council) presents its Annual Achievements and Highlights 05-19 Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2019. The Annual Report provides details of the John Innes Centre’s objectives, achievements, scientific Future Plans 20 and financial performance in the year, future plans, risk management and its governance and management structure. Financial Review 21-22 Risk Assessment and Management 23 About us • To use a wide range of contemporary Structure, Governance and Management 25-28 The John Innes Centre (JIC) is an independent, approaches to develop dialogue with policy world-leading international centre of excellence makers and the public. Independent Auditor’s Report 29-30 in plant science and microbiology. Our mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes • To train the scientific leaders of the future Dr Will West Financial Statements 31-50 through innovative research, to apply knowledge in a broad range of scientific and Chair – Governing Council & to benefit agriculture, the environment, human transferable skills. Remuneration Committee Charity Information 51 health, and well-being, to train scientists for the future and engage with policy makers and the Our impact public. The John Innes Centre’s research spans the spectrum from new discoveries in fundamental Our strategy science to strategic applications to deliver The John Innes Centre’s key strategic aims are: practical outcomes. • To deliver world leading research and to The expertise of John Innes Centre scientists develop opportunities for innovative and has made important contributions to industry long-term research in plant and microbial and society in the UK and world-wide. These sciences. A central principle of John Innes include: the discovery and application of Centre’s research is the use of genetics, conserved gene order in grasses for cereal continuing the long and prestigious history improvement; the characterisation of the of genetics at the JIC. dominant dwarfing phenotype that underpins improved wheat crop productivity; the • To translate research in the areas of yield understanding and application of flowering and quality in crop plants, the use of time; contributing to the first sequencing of microbial and plant products to promote a plant genome and the development of human health and the use of plants and genomic systems for exploiting Streptomyces, microbes in industrial biotechnology. the principal source of anti-infectives for human health. • To use novel genetic approaches to generate new varieties and strains of plants and An independent impact evaluation estimated microbes that can be used to further that John Innes Centre contributes £14 back to knowledge and to enhance productive and the UK economy for every £1 invested and the biotechnological capacity. research into wheat yield improvements and reducing cereal diseases could be worth £4.3bn • To apply modern biotechnology to at a global level. agriculture in an environmentally-sustainable context. (Source: Brookdale Consulting, June 2018) John Innes Centre (‘JIC’) is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. The Annual Report provides information on the legal purposes of the charity, the activities it undertakes and its main achievements. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act 2011, the Companies Act 2006, the Memorandum and Articles of Association, and Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015). 2 Annual Report | Year ended 31 March 2019 John Innes Centre 3 ANNUAL REPORT ANNUAL REPORT Field Experimentation Achievements and Highlights at Church Farm Professor Dale Sanders FRS, Director of the John Innes Centre hectares on-farm 20 growing space trial 12k plots The past year has been one of achievement We co-led the establishment of the and success for JIC across a range of fronts. We have been fortunate to attract two ‘gold standard’ wheat genome, an enormously new Group Leaders, Dr Susan Schlimpert and Dr Laila Moubayidin as Royal Society complex sequencing and data challenge 2 University Research Fellows. All four of our BBSRC-funded Institute Strategic Programmes m have made remarkable progress against highly 1700 ambitious objectives and were very favourably rated through external review. of laboratories, climate-controlled Further afield, our collaborations in China identification at the John Innes Centre. and Africa continue to grow, with a highly We also marked one year of our formal grain storage, meeting rooms, successful joint Chinese Academy of commitment to our technical research and seed processing equipment and Sciences-JIC symposium in Shanghai and support staff through the Technician funding of further joint projects, and we Commitment. Since becoming a founding E agricultural machinery storage initiated the Bioinformatics Community of signatory in May 2017, we have successfully C Practice in Kenya. submitted our self-assessment and action U Our research achievements have continued plan, and have been recognised for this work, G E apace.