The 2010 winner of the Royal Smithfield Club’s Bicentenary Trophy is Geoff Simm, academic director and vice principal (research) at the Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh.
Prof Simm is without doubt one of the outstanding applied animal researchers of his generation. His work on developing genetic selection indices for sheep and beef cattle has been widely taken up in the industry with direct and cumulative effects on improved carcass characteristics compatible with the interests of both consumers and producers.
Despite having an international academic reputation in animal breeding, Prof Simm has always kept knowledge transfer to the livestock industry at the top of his agenda, to the benefit of all livestock breeders in the UK. The establishment of EGENES, the main genetic evaluation database for farm animal species in the UK, has been a particular success.
By working very closely with breed societies and commercial producers the results of Prof Simm’s work in developing economic selection indices have had, and will continue to have, a growing economic benefit for the meat industry.
Prof Simm is a past recipient of the Sir John Hammond Memorial Prize, the RASE Medal for Research Achievement and the George Hedley Memorial Award. He was recently President of the British Society for Animal Science, is Chairman of the National Steering Committee on Farm Animal Genetic Resources, and is a past member of DEFRA's Science Advisory Group.