University of Manchester and BGI Genomics

John Lubbock made this Freedom of Information request to University of Manchester This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was partially successful.

John Lubbock
Delivered

Dear University of Manchester,

I am conducting a survey of UK higher educational institutions to find out which have had business dealings with the Chinese genomic sequencing company BGI Genomics.

I would like to ask whether your university has ever had any contracts or business relationships with BGI Genomics or its UK subsidiary MGI Tech UK. If there has been any work undertaken by BGI Genomics with your university, please can you provide a list of these contracts with dates from and to, and a short description of what the contract was for.

Yours faithfully,

John Lubbock

Link to this Report
MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Dear John,

I am writing to acknowledge your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 received by The University of Manchester yesterday, our reference as per the subject line.

The University will respond to your request within 20 working days.

Kind regards

Sharon

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office | Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G7 Christie Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | www.manchester.ac.uk

Please contact me via Teams or email as I may not be in the office to take your call.

Have you refreshed your Data Protection & Cyber Security training? Details of how staff can access the new course, are on the following IGO StaffNet page: https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

show quoted sections

Link to this Report
MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Dear John,

Thank you for your request for information received by The University of
Manchester on 26 April 2023 which was as follows:

 

I would like to ask whether your university has ever had any contracts or
business relationships with BGI Genomics or its UK subsidiary MGI Tech UK.
If there has been any work undertaken by BGI Genomics with your
university, please can you provide a list of these contracts with dates
from and to, and a short description of what the contract was for.

 

The University has now considered your request and I can advise that we
have searched our customer and supplier database which confirms we have
not done any work with BGI Genomics or MGI Tech UK.

 

I hope that this response is of use to you.

 

Kind regards

Sharon

 

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office |
Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G7 Christie
Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13
9PL | [1]www.manchester.ac.uk

 

Please contact me via Teams or email as I may not be in the office to take
your call.

 

Have you refreshed your Data Protection & Cyber Security training? Details
of how staff can access the new course, are on the following IGO StaffNet
page: [2]https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.manchester.ac.uk/
2. https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

Link to this Report
John Lubbock
Delivered

Dear MTRS FOIA,

I would like to follow up on this and ask you to check again if the University of Manchester has had any joint research agreements with BGI Group or any subsidiary companies.

Searching the UKRI funding website, I have found the following joint research agreement between Manchester anf BGI: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FR...

I would therefore like to follow up on this FoI to ask if there have been any other joint research agreements in which the University of Manchester and BGI Group or its subsidiary companies collaborated.

Yours sincerely,

John Lubbock

Link to this Report
MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Dear John,

I am writing to acknowledge your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 received by The University of Manchester today, our reference as per the subject line.

The University will respond to your request within 20 working days.

Kind regards

Sharon

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office | Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G7 Christie Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | www.manchester.ac.uk

Please contact me via Teams or email as I may not be in the office to take your call.

Have you refreshed your Data Protection & Cyber Security training? Details of how staff can access the new course, are on the following IGO StaffNet page: https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

show quoted sections

Link to this Report
MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Dear John,

 

Thank you for your request for information received by The University of
Manchester on 31 July 2023 which was as follows:

 

I would like to follow up on this and ask you to check again if the
University of Manchester has had any joint research agreements with BGI
Group or any subsidiary companies.

 

Searching the UKRI funding website, I have found the following joint
research agreement between Manchester anf BGI:
[1]https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://gtr....
[gtr[.]ukri[.]org]

 

I would therefore like to follow up on this FoI to ask if there have been
any other joint research agreements in which the University of Manchester
and BGI Group or its subsidiary companies collaborated.

 

The University has now considered your request and we can advise as
follows.

 

We can confirm this (i.e. the link provided) is the only research
collaboration between the University and BGI that we can find on our
records. This collaboration was awarded as an Innovation Fellowship fund
by BBSRC, which supports the exchange of knowledge and skills between
academic and industrial sectors.

 

I hope that this response is of use to you.

 

Kind regards

 

Sharon

 

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office |
Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G7 Christie
Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13
9PL | [2]www.manchester.ac.uk

 

Please contact me via Teams or email as I may not be in the office to take
your call.

 

Have you refreshed your Data Protection & Cyber Security training? Details
of how staff can access the new course, are on the following IGO StaffNet
page: [3]https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

 

References

Visible links
1. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/gtr.u...
2. http://www.manchester.ac.uk/
3. https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/ig...

Link to this Report
John Lubbock
Delivered

Dear MTRS FOIA,

I would like to ask why you have now been able to find this joint research project in your records after I showed you where to find it, but you could not find it before?

In your previous reply you said: "The University has now considered your request and I can advise that we
have searched our customer and supplier database which confirms we have not done any work with BGI Genomics or MGI Tech UK."

Is the UKRI database of joint research projects not a part of your customer and supplier database?

Yours sincerely,

John Lubbock

Link to this Report