23-BIUK - Strategic funding for BioImagingUK

BioImagingUK is the only national bioimaging network and plays a unique role in bringing together researchers and RTPs from across imaging domains to develop collaborations, strategic priorities, discuss challenges, opportunities and co-create solutions. We work in close partnership with UKRI and other stakeholders/funders to ensure co-ordination and continuous exchange of information to and from the community. BioImagingUK has delivered signficant and impactful outcomes across all domains for the community over the past funding period. The current proposal aims to build on our success and develop new initiatives to support imaging scientists, help with career development and enhance imaging infrastructure within the UK.

BioImagingUK has served a critical function in co-ordinating the community for over a decade. Network activity has accelerated over the past 4 years, especially through partnership with the RMS, which has extended our reach in convening community meetings, providing mentorship and RTP career development opportunities, supporting new collaborations, delivering funds and liaising with UKRI and other stakeholders. Continuation of the funding for the BioImagingUK Network Manager will be critical to enable us to build on this momentum to increase connectivity between biological and biomedical imaging domains, create opportunities for academic-industry partnering, support RTP and data scientist career development and develop learning resources for the community. We anticipate additionally drawing in new members from the spatial 'omics and associated bioinformatics community to enable broader conversations to happen across these currently siloed domains. This will drive new innovations and accelerate technology and data science solutions to understanding biology across scales.