Fellow

Ottoline Leyser is the Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge. An outstanding scientist, Ottoline also has a long-standing interest and expertise in fostering an inclusive, creative and connected research culture. In its role uniting the UK’s seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England, operating with a combined budget of more than £8 billion per year, UKRI has a vision “for an outstanding research and innovation system in the UK that gives everyone the opportunity to contribute and to benefit, enriching lives locally, nationally and internationally.” It is easy to see why Ottoline was the ideal choice to lead this organisation. Born in Oxfordshire, Ottoline went to the Wychwood School in Oxford and then to Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, gaining a BA in natural sciences in 1986 followed by a PhD in genetics in 1990. Her work used Arabidopsis thaliana, a member of the mustard (Brassicaceae) family, as a model species for the study of shoot growth, and this continued to be a key focus for her studies in the following decades. Her post-doctoral years at Indiana University saw her explore the role of auxin signalling in protein degradation, an interest that continued in her lab at the University of York until 2010. She then returned to Cambridge, first as Associate Director, and then, in 2013, as Director, of the Sainsbury Laboratory and Professor of Plant Development. Within the interdisciplinary research environment of this institute, she fostered studies that combined computational modelling with molecular genetics and cell biology to elucidate the hormonal regulation of shoot branching in plants. Her promotion to Director at the Sainsbury Laboratory came just a year before her husband, a freelance writer who had greatly facilitated her career by his role as main carer for their two children when they were young, was diagnosed with cancer. He died a year later. Describing this period as “certainly the hardest time of my life” she has said that work was very stabilising. And she says she learnt a crucial lesson about coping during a crisis, and that this informs her advice for anyone else trying to keep their career on the rails through tough times; "Although it is easy to feel as though you are burdening others, in my experience people were really pleased to be able to do something positive to help. So my advice would be to ask for help." Throwing herself into her career, Ottoline made the most of her role in Cambridge, pursuing her research alongside a long-term interest in science policy. The latter gradually took up increasing amounts of her time and since 2017 she has served on the Council for Science and Technology, an expert committee that advises the Prime Minister on science and technology policy issues. Ottoline’s long-term interest in research culture and its effects on the quality and effectiveness of the research system saw her chair the Nuffield Council on Bioethics project examining these issues. Its wide-reaching report, published in 2014, proposed a range of actions to support good research practice based on evidence gathered from scientists about what motivates them, and what they believe to be important for the production of high-quality science. Ottoline is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for her work on plant science, including, in 2000, the Society of Experimental Biology’s President’s Medal, in 2007 the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, in 2016 the UK Genetics Society Medal, and the EMBO Women in Science Award in 2017. Also in 2017, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the New Year Honours list for services to plant science, science in society and equality and diversity in science. In 2020, Ottoline received the British Society for Developmental Biology’s Waddington Medal, the only national award in developmental biology which is given for outstanding research performance as well as services to the subject community. In 2023, she was awarded the Royal Society Croonian Medal and Lecture. Ottoline was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007. In an interview for the organisation, as part of the “parent, carer, scientist” project, she reflected on diversity in science, in its widest sense, and on her decision to take the role offered to her in 2020, as Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation. Accepting this secondment from the University of Cambridge was a difficult decision, as it required her to step back from research and teaching. But she was excited to be at the forefront of catalysing significant change in the research system, improving its diversity and connectivity and fostering a more inclusive and creative research culture. As she said, “I decided that I could make more of a difference at UKRI, and that is the priority for me." Alongside her role at UKRI, Ottoline remains a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a Fellow of Clare College at the University of Cambridge. Ottoline will surely continue to make a hugely positive difference to science, and science policy, across the UK and beyond. The Academy of Medical Sciences was pleased to welcome her as an Honorary Fellow in 2020.