Bringing the Departments of Plant Sciences and Zoology together will unlock many benefits for the University through achieving co-location, encouraging collaboration and simplifying the teaching of the joint Biology degree.
Academic drivers for the creation of the Department of Biology include:
Existing overlaps between the research in the two departments and the fact that both departments increasingly conduct research in organisms other than plants and animals.
Convergence of the core analytical techniques in biology and the dominance of conceptual frameworks that apply to any organism.
Recognition that while many of the most important challenges facing humanity are biological in origin, few of these can be understood without crossing taxonomic boundaries.
Alignment of the undergraduate teaching structure – currently the three-year Biological Science degree, but soon to be a four-year course in Biology – with the Departmental structure, eliminating an anomaly within the MPLS division, and creating a unified voice for Biology within the University.
Other strategic drivers for the formation of the Department of Biology include:
Improved financial performance arising from the space and operational efficiencies.
Increased collaboration with the potential to develop cross-cutting research areas and thus increased research income.
Elimination of a threat to plant biology as a discipline in Oxford, arising from the inadequacy of the core infrastructure in the buildings occupied by the Department of Plant Sciences, and the implications that this will have for the recruitment of the next generation of faculty.
Release of a building (ca 4800 m2 NUA) in the Science Area for repurposing, whether to provide a home for more appropriate activities, or to provide decant space to facilitate other developments in the Science Area.
Creation of an environment for nurturing, attracting and retaining scientists of the highest calibre to enhance still further the academic performance of Oxford biologists.
The faculties in Zoology and Plant Sciences have now agreed a structure for the new department, and are currently taking this through the University governance process. The new department will consist of four centres – Biodiversity, Molecular Plant Biology, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, and Microbial and Disease Biology. These centres allow the University to combine talents from across the two existing departments while retaining distinct areas of historical expertise. By the time the Life and Mind Building opens there will be a single Department of Biology acting as a focus for organismal biology at every scale from the molecular and cellular through to the landscape and global.
