Ottoline Leyser, the Regius Professor of Botany at Cambridge university, thinks we have valuable leadership lessons to learn from vegetables. Ever since her school days, Leyser has been “gripped” by how plants develop and adapt to their environments — and struggles to understand why others may not be captivated.
Unlike genetically preprogrammed animals, which take generations to adapt, plants have to reinvent themselves every day. They grow towards the sunshine, decide when best to germinate according to the weather and try to resist predators, which is difficult when you are rooted to the spot. “In a plant context, most development happens post-embryonically, creating extraordinary flexibility in form,” she says.
Leyser, who was made a dame in 2017, smiles at the (unoriginal) suggestion that her academic obsession might have served as perfect preparation for her current role as chief executive of UK Research and Innovation, the public agency responsible for dispensing more than £8bn of research funding a year. In spite of the government’s determination to turn Britain into a “science superpower”, the country’s research community is facing uncertainty in the post-Brexit world and possible ejection from the EU’s €95bn Horizon Europe science programme. It has had to adapt fast.