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OryzaNet

Connecting the global rice research community

A BBSRC-funded international network supporting collaboration, innovation, and training across rice research: from fundamental science to real-world impact.

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£1 billion

The UK rice industry is worth nearly £1 billion annually.

20%

Rice provides around 20% of the daily calories consumed worldwide

10 billion

A growing global population by 2050 makes sustainable, resilient rice production urgent

Rice is essential and under pressure

Rice is a staple food for around half of the world's population and a vital source of calories and protein. It is grown across diverse and often challenging environments, from flooded lowlands to marginal upland soils, making it particularly vulnerable to climate change.

With a projected global population of 10 billion by 2050, improving the sustainability, resilience, yield, and nutritional quality of rice is critical. Rice research plays a central role in enhancing food security, strengthening livelihoods, and supporting climate resilience worldwide.

The UK delivers world-leading rice research across genetics, plant science, nutrition, computation, and social science, but greater coordination is needed to maximise its global impact.

OryzaNet brings this community together.

Our mission

OryzaNet is a BBSRC-funded network that connects people, capability, and knowledge across the UK and internationally to strengthen rice research and its global impact.

International and interdisciplinary collaboration

Training in cutting-edge technologies and methods

Early Career Researchers as future leaders

Equitable, inclusive, and ethical global partnerships

Together, we aim to shape the future of rice science and production.

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Join the OryzaNet community

XXX members and counting

Be part of a growing international network of researchers and industry partners working to advance rice science.

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Free to join • Open to researchers and industry collaborators

A growing international network

Connecting UK-based rice research with global partners and programmes.

Latest news

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17 July 2026

Congratulations to Oryzanet co-lead Professor Julie Gray in securing £800,000 BBSRC project funding

Professor Gray led her team at the University of Sheffield School of Biosciences in securing £800,000 project funding by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The project in collaboration with researchers from Penn State University, University of Würzburg and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. The project will grow and compare different genetically enhanced rice varieties in both controlled environments and tropical field trials in the Philippines. Through this they will be able to identify the specific traits that have a positive effect on resilience and use advanced tools such as machine learning to predict which plants will perform the best under stressful conditions.

16 June 2026

ISRFG 2026 Registration open - Closing August 1st 2026

23rd International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics (ISRFG 2026) ISRFG26 will be a great opportunity to showcase rice research in emerging rice-growing countries whilst bringing together collaborators at a historic venue in London.

14 June 2026

Bacterial leaf streak disease resistance genes.

The Rice Science Center at Kasetsart University have discovered a Thai rice variety with an unusual resistance mechanism to the pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzicola (or Xoo) and used this to pinpoint genetic differences between resistant and susceptible rice varieties. Their analysis revealed alterations in the coding and regulatory regions of several-defense related genes that can now be targeted to strengthen resistance to bacterial leaf streak and other rice diseases that cause substantial yield losses.