The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Peter Ratcliffe, Director of Clinical Research at the Francis Crick Institute and Director of the Target Discovery Institute at Oxford University.

Peter won the prize jointly with William Kaelin of Harvard and Gregg Semenza of Johns Hopkins, for their ‘discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability’. Between them, they discovered the key mechanisms that our cells use to detect and respond to low oxygen levels, known as ‘hypoxia’.

When our blood has too little oxygen, our kidneys send signals to boost red blood cell production to carry more oxygen. Peter’s research began by looking for a specialised oxygen sensor in the kidneys, but he found nothing special in kidney cells. Investigating further, he discovered a universal mechanism for detecting and responding to hypoxia that has since been found in all our cells.

Every cell in the body needs the right amount of oxygen to function and survive. When oxygen levels become too low, cells can activate emergency processes to survive. Peter’s current research is investigating hypoxia and the role it plays in a variety of health conditions, including heart disease, metabolic diseases and cancer, particularly in kidney cancer which could lead to potential new cancer treatments.

Peter Ratcliffe said: “I’m honoured and delighted at the news. I’ve had great support from so many people over the years. It’s a tribute to the lab, to those who helped me set it up and worked with me on the project over the years, to many others in the field, and not least to my family for their forbearance of all the up and downs.”

Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute, said: “Many congratulations to Peter on this well-deserved recognition of his ground-breaking research. His work has led to unexpected discoveries, revealing a universal mechanism for detecting and responding to oxygen levels in all our cells. These discoveries are based on innovative experiments, highly imaginative mechanisms, and a total dedication to absolute rigour. Peter is an exemplary clinician scientist. We are proud to have him at the Crick as our Director of Clinical Research.”

“Normalized” ranking sees Weizmann Institute of Science, Rockefeller University, OIST and IST Austria in the lead

Yesterday the renowned “Nature” journal released its “Nature Index 2019”, a ranking based on the annual evaluation of publication data of 82 well-established world-class journals. For the first time, it also took into account the size of the institutions in which the researchers work. The adjusted statistics is a huge success for the recently established BRIDGE Network: four of the five founding members made it into the top 10 research institutes worldwide. Weizmann Institute of Science shows up 2nd place, followed by the The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) on 3rd place. The Rockefeller University and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) are ranked 6th and 9th place, respectively. The fifth partner institution in the BRIDGE Network, the Crick Institute, does not appear in the ranking due to its ownership structure.

The “normalized” ranking allows the comparison of institutions of different sizes on the same basis. This method makes smaller institutions visible in the ranking according to their publication output. David Swinbanks, founder of Nature Index, says: “The normalized ranking is especially interesting because it draws to light some smaller institutes that are proportionally outstripping research powerhouses and would otherwise remain buried much lower down in the standard rankings. The smallest institutions in the top ten have some common features: ambition, as disclosed by mission statements about striving to be the best in the world, interdisciplinarity, with the strong embrace of collaboration across fields, and in several cases, the backing of Nobel laureates.”

The annual Nature Index is published by the scientific journal Nature. The index is a measuring instrument for the success of scientific institutions in the natural sciences. Publications in which researchers present their scientific results in the most prestigious and well-known journals count as the currency of success. The Nature Index is based on a list of 82 quality journals of different subject areas. He sums up the contributions of authors to articles in these journals and analyzes their affiliations. The aim is to identify those institutes and universities that have the greatest impact on the global research landscape. The “normalized” ranking, which was first prepared for the year 2018, calculates the proportion of these articles in the total output of the respective institution. Thereby it shows for the first time what share of the output has been judged of high quality, independent of an institution’s size.

The BRIDGE network is an informal platform of research institutions, each of them pursuing two missions: the performance of cutting-edge basic research and the training of PhD students. Its five founding members-the Rockefeller University (USA), the Francis Crick Institute (UK), the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (Japan) and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) – are among the world’s most successful scientific institutions in the fields of the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. The network provides a basis for fruitful exchange of best practice between its members, combining expertise in the management and administration of research institutes and graduate universities to the benefit of science and society.

Five top international research institutes from Europe, USA, Middle East and Asia join forces to form the unique BRIDGE Network.

Klosterneuburg, June 5, 2019 – Science is inherently international, competitive, collaborative, and dynamic. Now, five research institutes from four regions of the world have founded the “BRIDGE Network.” The new and unique network includes the Rockefeller University (USA), the Francis Crick Institute (UK), the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (Japan) and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) with the aim of strengthening excellence in scientific research and education through collaboration and exchange. The platform was presented during a joint event in Vienna on Wednesday, June 5, 2019 by the presidents and senior scientists of the research institutes.

Development of best practices through mutual exchange of experience

The BRIDGE network is an informal platform of research institutions, each pursuing two missions: the performance cutting-edge research and the training of PhD students. This is represented by the name of the network: “Basic Research Institutions Delivering Graduate Education”. The members combine the best of two worlds for top researchers: on the one hand, the freedom and availability of resources to fully concentrate on research and, on the other, a steady influx of brilliant young scientists.

The network provides a basis for fruitful exchange of best practice between its members. The combined expertise in the management and administration of research institutes and graduate universities shall be used to the benefit of science and society. The existing links between the partner organizations and their respective employees shall be strengthened and further developed.

“It is hugely exciting to see research institutes from around the world come together to cooperate and help us reach new frontiers in scientific progress. In our globalizing world we must come together to ensure we are at the cutting edge of research, teaching and education”, says Tom Henzinger, President of IST Austria. “We are delighted to be setting up ‘The Bridge Network’ with colleagues from these outstanding institutions.”

International cooperation as the key to success

The members of the BRIDGE network are among the world’s most successful scientific institutions in the fields of the natural sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. The five top institutes combine the goal of outstanding science with graduate education without being a full university offering undergraduate studies. This model has proved extremely successful at Rockefeller University (founded in 1901) and the Weizmann Institute (founded in 1934) and formed the basis for the foundation of the relatively young institutes OIST, IST Austria and Crick (all three founded in the past 15 years). The five founding institutes fulfill optimal conditions for international scientists, they recruit and operate in a global environment and promote cooperation across institutional, political and disciplinary boundaries.

The aims of the BRIDGE Network are, in particular, to:

• Advocate common values, in particular excellence in research and graduate education, internationality, research ethics, responsible leadership and mentorship, autonomy, openness and diversity
• Promote successful organizational models for research and graduate education
• Promote standards for evaluation of scientific institutes and graduate universities
• Address issues of common concern and develop common positions towards third parties (national and international)
• Issue policy statements
• Provide a forum for regular meetings
• Develop best practices through mutual exchange of experiences
• Support the member organizations and strengthen communication and collaboration between them

The BRIDGE Network has been set up as an open platform research institutes. Therefore, further collaborations are possible at any time, and more research institutes may be invited to join, if all existing members agree.

“Institutes like ours that do research and graduate training are rather rare and are generally relatively new.  As a consequence they don’t fit neatly into boxes like traditional research institutes or universities,” saysPaul Nurse, Nobel laureate and CEO as well as President of the Francis Crick Institute (Great Britain). Through the BRIDGE network, we can share best practice to make the most of our advantages and work together to solve common challenges. We hope that this will help us all to improve, benefiting our science and ultimately society.”

“Today’s modern society is so different than those that existed in the past. This is mainly due to our natural curiosity: We want to understand the world we live in. The Bridge Network will create a unique ecosystem of institutions, all of them focused on scientific research of a fundamental nature. This is the basis of all further technological advance. These institutions have many features in common: They are driven by excellence and curiosity; they are, by default, international; and they focus on the advancement of scientific knowledge as well as on graduate education”, says Daniel Zajfman, President of the Weizmann Institute (Israel).

“Science is a global endeavor that involves researchers from all over the world. At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in Japan we bring together outstanding scientists to work in a cross-disciplinary environment that offers high-trust funding, access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, and respect for one another. We see the BRIDGE network as an important platform to promote the value of basic research across several continents, to strengthen the exchange of information among some of the leading international institutes, and to raise the visibility of the importance of diversity for the pursuit of scientific excellence,” says Mary Collins, Provost of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (Japan).

“The founding members of the new BRIDGE Network represent a unique set of organizations within the ecosystem of international scientific research. The intimate, focused cultures of discovery that arise in our institutions bring to the fore creativity and collaboration among some of the best scientists in the world. The new BRIDGE Network will help us enhance those attributes and will enable us to pursue common cause with a group of like-minded research organizations in the future,” says Franklin Hoke, Associate Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs, of Rockefeller University (USA).