Richard Harrison

Prof Harrison is the Managing Director of the Plant Sciences Group, which comprises approximately 1400 staff split across 20 chair groups in Wageningen University and 8 Business Units within Wageningen Plant Research. In the Netherlands he is a member of the Top Team Tuinbouw en Uitgangsmaterialen, representing all Dutch Knowledge Insitutes . He provides strategic oversight of several programme boards for large regional and national initiatives on behalf of Wageningen U&R.  He is an honorary  professor at the University of Birmingham,UK. 

Previously he was an executive Director at NIAB (UK) with overall responsibility for NIAB’s portfolio of arable genetics, pathology, biotechnology, data science and crop characterisation. Alongside that he led NIAB’s contribution to the Crop Science Centre, the alliance between the University of Cambridge and NIAB, designed to bridge the gap between discovery science and societal impact. This alliance has received significant philanthropic support and rapidly established its position in the national innovation landscape. Prior to his role in Cambridge, he worked at East Malling as head of genetics, where he specialised in horticultural genetics and genomics of fruit crops.  

Prof Harrison has a PhD in evolutionary systems biology. His research group has worked to understand the evolution and genetic basis of complex traits, such as interactions between plants and microbes. Outputs have included scientific knowledge, tools, techniques and products to underpin the sustainable development of the agricultural, horticultural and food industries, using both breeding and biotechnology solutions. His group was among the first to implement gene editing techniques in key horticultural crops and in fungi used for alternative protein production. Through collaborative work with industrial partners, he and his team have delivered disease resistance traits into multiple commercial breeding programmes, as well as having initiated new public-private breeding programmes funded by global partners.