The LINK Initiative was a major UK public/private sector funded Science & Technology initiative

I was co-coordinator (a.k.a. manager) of the £12m LINK Protein Engineering Programme for more than 6 years. The programme was "pre-competitive" i.e. it focussed on funding research which promised to lead to products or processes. Each award in the Programme was granted on a 50:50 public:private sector funding basis. The public sector funds came from the budgets of the DTI and Research Councils. My role was to seek out relevant ideas in the universities or public sector research institutes, identify a commercial collaborator and present the suggested research programme to a specialist committee consisting of academic and industrial members.

After my Programme was completed I tendered for and was awarded a contract to report on the outcome of all the Biotechnology LINK Programmes. These were:

• Protein Engineering: seen as a key area for research and development across all sectors of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Covers instrumentation as well as proteins
• Analytical Biotechnology: Analysis of cellular events using non-invasive techniques; Identification of micro-organisms; Analysis of macro- and small molecules in bioprocessing
• Biochemical Engineering: Areas of interest: downstream processing; fermentation technology; process control; containment, asepsis & sterility; process redesign to use biochemical routes
• Applied Biocatalysis
• Cell Engineering
• Biological Treatment of Soil & Water
• Applied Genomics
• Bioremediation