A SWINDON research council has been awarded £2 million to help turn scientific ideas into profitable companies.

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will use the money to train scientists in producing business plans and patenting their ideas.

The UK is acknowledged as a world leader in bioscience, but there are fears this dominance could be threatened unless academics sharpen up their business skills.

"We want to help people identify opportunities to get their science commercialised," said research council spokeswoman Monica Winstanley.

"We need to do more to strengthen the link between industry and business, to make sure good science is turned into new business opportunities and new jobs."

The council, which employs 150 staff at Polaris House, North Star, channelled more than £275 million of public money into pioneering scientific research last year.

Beneficiaries have been at the forefront of biological discovery, playing major roles in the development of ground-breaking technologies such as GM food and stem cell research.

It also helped fund the science behind the diagnosis of foot-and-mouth disease and the identification of a link between BSE and CJD in humans.

In 2002, the Evening Advertiser reported the research council was ploughing more than £160,000 into a project using runner beans to unlock the secrets of crop diseases.

Other research it backed resulted in the invention and marketing of So-Green, a grass seed that claims to keep lawns looking green all year round.

And it is also supporting work to produce a new antibiotic, that it hopes could one day defeat the hospital superbug.

The council is one of 16 organisations to have been awarded a share of £15 million in Govern-ment grants as part if its Public Sector Research Exploitation initiative.

Announcing the £2 million award yesterday, Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury said: "Without backing and support in the early stages, commercial opportunities arising from scientific discoveries and new technologies can be lost.

"This funding is intended to capitalise on the cutting-edge research taking place in the public sector.

"It is vital for UK business and our quality of life that innovative ideas make it beyond the drawing-board and become successful products and services."

Andy Tate