Is the Medical Research Council’s largest research institute about to move? The new boss must decide.
Andrea Chipman
As vaccinologist Leszek Borysiewicz starts his first week as the new head of the Medical Research Council (MRC), one of the first items on his plate will be the proposal to move the organization’s largest research institute from its suburban headquarters to a new site in central London.
Relocating the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), is a key element in fulfilling the government’s mandate to translate more basic science knowledge into applications that can be used in clinical practice. The MRC is proposing to move the NIMR from its 47-acre existing headquarters in Mill Hill to Brill Place, a 3.6-acre site behind the British Library owned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The DCMS is currently auctioning off the site and the MRC is bidding in conjunction with Cancer Research UK, which would relocate one of its laboratories there, University College London and the Wellcome Trust.
A controversial move
Nearly four years of debate on the matter have created a chilly atmosphere between MRC executives and many of the institute’s researchers, according to both scientists and politicians involved with the issue. Many of those interviewed say a lack of careful planning and poor internal communications torpedoed earlier plans to move the institute to a different site and helped to curtail the tenure of Borysiewicz’s predecessor, Colin Blakemore, who stepped down as MRC Chief Executive late last month to resume an academic post at Oxford University.
In an interview on Radio 4’s Today Show over the weekend, Blakemore himself admitted that the controversy over the NIMR had “dogged, to some degree, the four years of my appointment”.
The uncertainties are unlikely to be resolved in the immediate future. The DCMS will announce a shortlist of bidders for the Brill site imminently, but the MRC consortium is likely to face stiff competition for such a central location and the final price is likely to be steep, those interviewed said. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the space would be large enough to encompass both the essential functions of the NIMR and those of CRUK, which plans to put a laboratory two-thirds the size of its current facility in Lincoln’s Inn on the new site. Moreover, even if the MRC consortium is the successful bidder, it could run up against significant planning hurdles as it seeks to relocate the NIMR’s animal research laboratory, the largest in Europe, and its category four virus containment laboratory.
“The operating costs will be much higher than Mill Hill—at least 30% higher, as everyone knows that the costs are higher in comparison with a suburban location,” said Des Turner, an MP and member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which earlier this year issued a scathing report on the MRC’s plans to move the NIMR to an alternative site. “It will undoubtedly be extremely expensive, would inevitably involve Treasury input and needs to be looked at not just in terms of economic value but in terms of scientific value.”
Commons report slammed earlier plans
The current project follows nearly four years of internal debate over the future home of the NIMR. Initial plans in 2004 to move the institute to Cambridge were quickly disregarded in favour of developing a site formerly occupied by the National Temperance Hospital adjacent to Euston Station, in conjunction with UCL. After three years of preparation, during which MRC executives fielded accusations from NIMR scientists that the NTH site was inadequate for the institute’s purposes, that plan was abruptly abandoned after the Science and Technology Committee said the MRC hadn’t provided sufficient evidence that the move to the NTH and co-location with UCL would help it to improve links between basic and clinical research. In its report in March 2007, the Committee said that the proposal to relocate the NIMR to the NTH site “has been an object lesson in how not to handle such a project,” and it encouraged the MRC to develop a new plan that would incorporate both a new site in central London and the existing facilities at Mill Hill.
While NIMR scientists interviewed said they aren’t ruling out of hand the Brill site, they are concerned about its suitability, particularly with regard to the institute’s animal laboratories and virus containment facilities.
“We aren’t hearing a guarantee that we will be able to have our 30,000 cages of rats,” said Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the Division of Stem Cell Biology and developmental genetics at the NIMR. “And the containment facility (for viruses) is a serious issue for UK science. That is a major concern for us and when we ask the question, all we get back is, ’that’s a detail—we’ll worry about it later.’”
“I think the [Brill Place] project could be very good, if it is done properly. I would in principle welcome a new Institute of that scale at that location,” he added. "But the site will still be constrained compared to our present one at Mill Hill, which, with over ten times as much land, offers far more opportunity for expansion at considerably less cost
The DCMS is expected to raise at least £20 million from the sale of the site, sources familiar with the sale said, while capital investment for the MRC consortium’s new research centre could cost upwards of £700 million. For Chief Executive Borysiewicz, the NIMR project is likely to be his first real headache.