Former WWF trustee to chair new institute

THE man charged with chairing the proposed research institute formed from the Macaulay Land Use and the Scottish Crop Research Institutes (SCRI) is Ray Perman, a former chair of WWF Scotland and a trustee of WWF UK, writes Andrew Arbuckle.

Perman was also a board member of Scottish Enterprise until December 2009 and chair of Social Investment Scotland.

The new institute, which does not yet have a name, will have a combined staff of more than 600 and a turnover of more than 35 million. It is expected to officially come into being next April. Peter Berry, chairman of the SCRI governing board, said: "I look forward to working with Ray over the next year to establish the world-class new institute which is our vision for this merger of two great Scottish scientific institutions."

Michael Gibson chairman of the Macaulay governing board, said: "I am very proud that the Macaulay is going to be a founding partner in what will be one of Europe's foremost scientific institutes that is based here in Scotland."

Perman said: "These two institutes already have international reputations for the quality of the work they do. By coming together they are recognising that the problems the world faces, such as climate change and the sustainable use of scarce resources, demand cross-disciplinary solutions. The new organisation will have a tremendous amount to contribute to Scotland and the world."

In October, SCRI and the Macaulay said they had agreed in principle to form a new institute which would be the first in Europe to carry out research into food, land use and climate change.