The Legume Generation Innovation Communities
Posted: 29.10.2025
The purpose of this report is to provide and overview of the Legume Generation innovation communities and to record some insights from their establishment.
The overall purpose of the Legume Generation innovation communities is to make the connection between research activity and the breeding process. The idea can be traced back to the observation in the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra, UK) of a serious disconnect between public investment in research that depends on plant breeding for its impact. In the UK then, that disconnect had been increased by the privatisation of the world-renowned Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge in 1987. To address this, Defra diverted some of its funds for project-based research relevant to plant breeding towards the funding of species-specific partnerships between plant breeders and the relevant research base. These were called the Defra Genetic Improvement Networks. Despite relatively modest funding, these new structures had a far-reaching impact on the relationships between research and plant breeding. This experience provided the background to the innovation community concept in Legume Generation.
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