PEALS Research Fellow Dr Ken Taylor has been successful in an application for funding from the 2021 HASS Research Institutes’ Pioneer Awards. He has been given £998 to conduct some focus group research among allotment gardeners to elicit views on the potential impacts that synthetic biology might have on the cultivation or breeding of food crops. This will build on initial work that was part of the ‘Evolution or Revolution?’ public engagement and artistic collaboration he carried out in 2019-20 as part of the Synthetic Portabolomics project.  Ken will again be working with artist Dr Marianne Wilde and also with PEALS and Portabolomics PhD candidate Natalie Partridge. 

PEALS Executive Director, Professor Simon Woods, has provided match funding for the project and so in addition to gathering data for a forthcoming paper Marianne will be able to develop ideas for making some work.