The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is inviting the UK bioscience community to help guide the development of a new ‘digital organisms’ strategy. By filling in a short 15 question survey scientists can help shape the council’s future funding strategy in the area predictive biology.

In the Strategic Plan 2010-2015 the BBSRC set out a vision for predictive biology. The ultimate realisation of this is the creation of digital organisms – collections of integrated models underpinned by quantitative data, which can be used to represent biological systems and to predict how they will behave under different conditions.

One of the BBSRC’s key priorities set out in the Strategic Plan was to develop a strategy for these digital organisms and the council has established a working group chaired by Professor Helen Byrne of the University of Oxford to take this on.

On the advice of the expert working group BBSRC is undertaking a community consultation to gather evidence to inform the development of a digital organisms strategy. The findings arising from the consultation will be considered by the Working Group at its second meeting in September 2012.

The consultation is available online at: www.keysurvey.co.uk/f/435015/2039.

The survey is open to all researchers active in academia or industry. The BBSRC hopes to collect responses from researcher at all stages of their careers and from all disciplines. The survey is open now until Monday 2 September.

For further information about this consultation contact Dr Mark Roberts at mark.roberts2@bbsrc.ac.uk.