RSB secures Defra funding for plant health professional development initiatives

The RSB is pleased to announce it has been awarded a grant of over £500,000 from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) in partnership with Fera Science Ltd to continue and expand its programme of plant health professional development initiatives over the next four years (2025-2029).

Previous Defra funding

The grant builds on previous Defra funding which supported the establishment and ongoing management of the Plant Health Professional Register (PHPR) and associated training course, a suite of Plant Health Undergraduate Studentships (PHUGS), and a plant health community network. 

The initiatives form part of Defra’s commitment to delivering the Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain by:

• Establishing a recognised career pathway for plant health professionals.
• Increasing technical capacity and capability in plant health and biosecurity.
• Creating greater recognition of plant health skills, competencies, and professional status.
• Developing a diverse community of plant health and biosecurity professionals with networking opportunities to share updates, ideas, resources, and best practice.
• Inspiring and developing the next generation of plant health and biosecurity professionals.

The previous tranche of funding from Defra (to March 2025) enabled 138 individuals to join the PHPR, the launch of an online training course (2023) to support PHPR registration at Associate grade, and the organisation of 14 free plant health networking events (from 2021-2025). A PHP (Plant Health Professional) mentoring scheme was also piloted at Fera (2023), a Plant Health Professionals Network group was established on LinkedIn (2021) which has grown to over 290 members, 68 PHUGS placements were funded (2017-2024), and four annual Future Leader Summits were hosted to foster knowledge exchange.

New Defra funding (2025-2029)

The new funding will allow the RSB to continue this important work and extend its offer through the development of further initiatives. These will include the launch of a searchable PHPR directory on the RSB website to increase the visibility of registered Plant Health Professionals; funding RSB membership costs for up to 100 people looking to join the PHPR; and the development of a new e-Learning course to support ‘Registered’ grade applicants. The new tranche of funding will also enable the development of new online resources to support PHPR applicants at ‘Senior’ level; the launch of a mentorship and advocacy scheme to support new applicants to the PHPR; expansion of the PHUGS programme by offering 12-core-funded studentships per year (from 2026); and continued growth of the plant health community network.

Chief Executive of the RSB, Dr Doug Brown FRSB, said: “We’re delighted to have received funding from Defra to carry on our vital plant health work and support of plant health professionals across the world. The funding will enable us to continue running our networking events, double the current number of studentships, enable a new generation to get stuck into ground-breaking research on plant health, and create a robust professional development framework for current and future plant health professionals.”

Charles Lane, Consultant Plant Pathologist at Fera Science, said: “I have found being an RSB Senior Plant Health Professional really valuable when talking to a wide range of stakeholders about my expertise and experience. I enjoy the commitment to ‘lifelong learning’ to maintain these skills as part of my annual continuing professional development return and sharing my knowledge with the next generation as they set out on their professional career in plant health.”

Learn more about the Plant Health Professional Register.