Colin McRoberts

Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute

AFBI focuses on leading improvements in the agri-food industry; protecting animal, plant and human health and enhancing the natural and marine environment. The Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute has a proud reputation for providing exceptional service to our customers. Our mission is to maintain and enhance our reputation as a world-class scientific institute, delivering proven value to all our customers. We provide research and development, analytical and diagnostic services, and scientific advice in areas of agriculture, economics, food, animal and plant health, marine and fresh water ecosystem management, renewable energies and the agri-environment. We pride ourselves on the quality and breadth of our scientific expertise and maintain appropriate quality assurance and accreditation standards together with several national and international reference laboratories. AFBI engages in collaborative partnerships with academic institutions, private companies and other organisations worldwide. We assist companies to add value to their products and improve production and processing technologies, we have commercial partnerships which are helping to develop and bring new products to market. We work closely with agencies like Invest NI, the TSB and the KTN to help small to medium enterprises exploit funding and access our services through Innovation vouchers, grants for R&D and SMART programmes. AFBI has a successful track record of commercialising virus discovery for animal vaccine development with a multi-million-pound royalty income annually. We are investing in the commercialisation of Intellectual Property arising from our research programmes with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). This activity will create opportunities for companies to partner with AFBI in exploiting exciting, innovative new technologies.