Bee ambitous

Dr Connolly’s project involved working with Scottish beekeepers to monitor honeybee losses and investigating how these might correlate with risk factors such as beekeeping husbandry, disease, weather, land use, pesticide exposure and parasites.

As a result of the project, the beekeeping community in Scotland has become an active research partner for the university and helped contribute to their understanding of the disease and parasitic threat to bee colonies in Scotland.

The Scottish Enterprise Life Sciences Awards celebrate the continuing global achievements of the sector. Held annually, the awards dinner attracts over 800 people from the life sciences community both in the UK and abroad, to highlight Scotland’s most innovative companies across the industry.

Dr Connolly explains what being a finalist means for him and the significance that the awards have for the Scottish life sciences community.

Why collaboration is key to tackling urgent problems

The University of Dundee exists to deliver impacts that improve the quality of people’s lives, both locally and globally, and to promote the sustainable use of global resources for the benefit of future generations. 

I was nominated for this award as our project highlights what can be achieved by engaging with the community to tackle urgent societal problems. Our project would not be possible without collaboration between the university, Science & Advice for Scottish Agriculture and the Scottish Beekeepers Association. Together we have made an impact in Scotland for the benefit of the whole world.

Why the awards are important

The Scottish Enterprise Life Science Awards provide the opportunity to advertise what is possible in Scotland. 

The awards are of major significance. In the world of life science, the UK punches well above its weight in terms of discovery and innovation, and Scotland punches well above its weight within the UK. This is the opportunity for Scotland to demonstrate its continuing contribution. 

Scotland’s life science environment offers great opportunities to discover innovate and deliver impact. Therefore, these awards help us to maintain momentum and inspire new innovators.

What it means to be a finalist

Being a finalist is a great honour, especially given the incredible standard of the competition across Scotland.

Our project epitomises the vision of the University of Dundee in the future, where we aim to put public engagement at the centre of everything we do. This competition helps us out shout out our ambitions to engage. 

In addition, this is a great boost to the hundreds of individual beekeepers in Scotland that have contributed their knowledge, experiences and samples to an issue of global importance - the decline in our bees. 

We asked a great deal of a team of eight beekeepers when we asked them to step into the scary world of life sciences, and they have stepped up to the plate and succeeded. Being shortlisted as a finalist is a marvellous vindication that their brave efforts are valued by Scotland. 

An important message from our ambitious programme is that ‘citizen science’ is an enormous and valuable font of knowledge, skills and energy that can deliver the science beyond the reach of a laboratory.

How Scottish Enterprise can help

Working with academic partners can help you tackle some of the biggest issues in the life sciences industry – find out how we can help you get connected.

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