A task force has recommended against splitting Britain's National Institute for Medical Research.

After months of deliberation, a task force set up to consider the future of the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR)—one of Britain's leading centres for basic medical research—has recommended that the institute be moved from Mill Hill, on the outskirts of London, to a single site in central London.

“I am very happy that the decision is to retain the institute in London on a single site,” says Robin Lovell-Badge, one of two NIMR researchers on the task force. “Any other option would probably have meant that the institute would not survive.”

The Medical Research Council (MRC) has wanted to push the institute more toward clinical research and for the past year has been considering different options, including moving the institute closer to a research hospital (Nature 423, 573; 2003). NIMR staff have looked on anxiously as, over the course of several meetings, the task force considered the possibility of splitting the institute.

At the panel's last meeting in June, it ruled out several other choices, including the fragmentation option, and agreed unanimously that a single, more central location would best serve the institute's aim of translational research.

The new location would move the NIMR close either to King's College London or to University College London, both of which have expressed an interest in forming partnerships with it. The MRC will meet on July 29 to consider the panel's recommendation before it makes its decision.

The council will have to consider many factors such as cost and location, says Colin Blakemore, MRC chief executive and the panel's chair. “The task force has been relatively detached from issues like cost and how the decision fits with the general strategies of the research councils,” he says.

“There is a general policy to move things out of London if possible,” Blakemore adds. “The council has already said, from looking at our preliminary reports, that it is surprised by the central London recommendation.”

The council might let the institute remain in its present site, he says. But an independent report commissioned by the MRC earlier this year found that the building, built in the 1930s, will need major refurbishment in 10–20 years.

NIMR director Sir John Skehel says he is reserving judgement until the final decision is made. But Guy Dodson, head of the institute's division of protein structure, says NIMR staff are sceptical of any change that would threaten the institute's unique multidisciplinary culture. “Universities are now striving to create institutes and remove departmental barriers,” Dodson says. “NIMR already has that.”

Universities are now striving to create institutes and remove departmental barriers. NIMR already has that. Guy Dodson, NIMR