Warwick Crop Centre is part of the University’s School of Life Sciences and is an internationally recognised centre for translational research in sustainable agriculture and horticulture and in food security. The School of Life Sciences was ranked second in the UK for Agriculture, Food and Veterinary research in the Government's 2014 “Research Excellence Framework”.

Fresh produce, including ornamentals, is our speciality. We also work on other crops, including oil seed rape. We undertake a wide range of research in specialist laboratory, field and glasshouse-based facilities to provide high quality science expertise in areas including crop breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, crop nutrition and environmental research.

The UK Vegetable Gene Bank located on the Wellesbourne campus has a remit for the collection, conservation, characterization, documentation and research study of a range of vegetable crops and their wild relatives. Through the Vegetable Genetic Improvement Network project (VeGIN) we have been able to develop a range of vegetable-specific resources to identify a variety of traits that could be incorporated into cultivars to increase ‘sustainability’.

We work collaboratively with industry through directly-funded projects, levy-funded projects and schemes such as LINK, BBSRC Industrial Partnership Awards, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and other schemes funded by Innovate UK to provide innovative solutions to today’s agricultural and horticultural issues and to help maintain a competitive and sustainable farming industry. We are research partners in the Waitrose Agronomy Group.

We offer a range of training opportunities. Opportunities for post-graduate students include PhDs and MScs by research, with most students going on to roles in the agriculture and food industry, and three successful MSc courses in Crop Production, Environmental Bioscience and Food Security.

Being part of a research-active university, we work collaboratively with other disciplines on a wide range of projects, to widen our offering in the areas of food and health. The University’s Global Research Priorities (GRP) programme provides a focus for multidisciplinary research in key priority areas that the University has identified as affecting global society. Warwick Crop Centre is very engaged with the ‘Food’ GRP as one of those priority areas through research and teaching, bringing together issues of food production and supply, environmental and social sustainability, governance, social justice, nutrition and public health.