The Wellcome Sanger Institute calls on all political parties to commit to attracting and retaining top researchers, scientists and innovators from around the world to ensure the UK remains a global scientific leader
Sanger’s Head of Policy, Sarion Bowers, urges all political parties to support the immigration of talented scientists from around the world to ensure the UK remains a global scientific leader.
11 June 2024
The Wellcome Sanger Institute is a world leader in genome research that delivers insights into human, evolutionary and pathogen biology.
In order to achieve our vision and deliver on our mission to “apply and explore genomic technologies at scale to advance understanding of biology and improve health”, we commit to:
- Conducting Faculty-driven genomic science, making discoveries not easily made elsewhere.
- Employing our unique scale and operations to deliver cutting-edge data generation and analysis.
- Utilising our capabilities to take on translational challenges.
- Strategically deploying our Wellcome core funding to enable long-term thinking and the ability to take scientific risks.
- Providing world-class training to scientists and specialists in genomic research.
- Collaborating, leading, convening and engaging globally.
The Wellcome Sanger Institute is committed to training and developing local talent. For example, we offer apprenticeships, a fully funded PhD programme, dedicated Postdoctoral Excellence Fellowships for people from Black heritage backgrounds and the Janet Thornton Postdoctoral Fellowship for those returning to science. Our staff also support numerous training and work experience opportunities in conjunction with colleagues at Wellcome Connecting Science. However, it remains the case that to deliver our cutting-edge research we must recruit internationally.
The Sanger Institute works hard to attract and retain specialist staff who are essential to the delivery of our transformative science. We currently employ talented staff from over 70 countries. It would not be possible to deliver our mission without them.
These individuals work on the most difficult challenges facing human health, from cancer and ageing through to infectious diseases. Today, we have international staff working on transformative science such as the Human Cell Atlas, sequencing individual cells in the human body to create a map of the body in unprecedented detail, Mutographs, mapping a lifetime of accumulated genetic changes which for some individuals result in cancer, Deciphering Developmental Disorders, delivering diagnoses for children with undiagnosed rare diseases, and Darwin Tree of Life, sequencing 70,000 species of animals, plants, fungi and protists across Britain and Ireland. These projects, together with the whole range of large-scale research we do, make the UK a global scientific leader and deliver benefits to society through supporting a rapidly expanding industry and improving health.
We call on whoever is elected to form the next UK Government to commit to attracting and retaining top researchers, scientists and innovators from around the world to ensure the UK remains a global scientific leader.
