Nicola has been working with SRUC for over 30 years. She initially joined as a Research Assistant in the Poultry Department and after 2 years moved to the Hill and Mountain Research Centre at Kirkton as a sheep technician, then researcher.

Nicola’s research focuses on sheep genetics. She is passionate about breeding sheep to fit different production systems – looking at traditional production and reproductive characteristics, as well as new traits that will help to keep sheep production economically and environmentally sustainable.

I have been working for around 30 years at SAC/SRUC on sheep breeding research projects. Since 1997, I have been closely involved with the work of the CT unit, undertaking a PhD based on CT scanning of breeding hill ewes to assess seasonal tissue changes. The sheep genetic projects that I have been involved in have mainly been associated with breeding for improvements in carcass and meat quality, alongside traditional production and reproductive traits, and have considered both hill and terminal sire breeds. These projects have also involved evaluation of several techniques for measuring carcass and meat quality in live animals and carcasses, including ultrasound, CT, video image analysis and several mechanical, chemical and sensory meat quality tests. I have also been involved in similar projects with beef cattle and pigs.

More recently my research has been concerned with understanding and selecting for new traits in sheep, such as greenhouse gas emissions and feed efficiency. I manage the SRUC GreenSheep facilities (individual sheep feed intake monitoring equipment, portable accumulation chambers, mobile CT scanner) and have led numerous projects using this equipment. One of the main aims is to investigate the genetic control of sustainability traits and their relationships with other important production, health and welfare traits at the animal level, as well as trade-offs / win-wins at the wider system scale.

I do some teaching on SRUC degree courses, mainly to 3^rd year students on Growth and Development, and Breeding and Genetics. I usually supervise at least one honours project each year. 

SUPERVISED POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS:

Amer Masri (co-supervisor) – Muscling QTL in sheep (completed 2013)

Claire Donaldson (co-supervisor) – Sheep spine characteristics measured by CT (completed Jun 2014)

Neil Clelland (main supervisor) – Use of CT to predict lamb meat quality (completed Dec 2015)

Ping Zhou (co-supervisor) - Investigation of reproductive and health factors influencing breeding ewe fertility in hill flocks (completed 2020)

Holly Nisbet (co-supervisor) - Improving the efficiency of beef production through the use of precision farming technology and machine Learning Techniques (completed 2025)

Kim Hay (co-supervisor) - Genetics of lamb survivial (completed 2026)

Emma Dods (main supervisor) - Developing a selection index that can be used to rank and select sheep based on their genetic potential for reducing the carbon footprint of a breeding ewe flock (started 2023)

Current projects (2026)

•   2025-2028 (PI) Global Methane Hub "Cleanbreeding: Global optimization of breeding for reduced methane emissions in small ruminants" (with research and industry partners from Australia, Ireland,  Uruguay and New Zealand) AUS$ 870K
•  2024-2027 (PI) DEFRA (Green-ERA Hub) “Reducing sheep methane emissions: sustainability in practice via new breeding goals” (with research and industry partners from Ireland, France, Norway, Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand) £250K
•   2024-2027 (co-I) BBSRC (Land Use for Net Zero) “Grassland Resilience for Net Zero: Sustainable practices for shaping the future of UK land use” (with University of the West of England, Aberystwyth University, Queens University Belfast, University of Reading, 14 industry partners) £4.7M
•   2022-2027 (PI) Scottish Government (RESAS) “Breeding and management strategies for sheep in the Scottish hills and uplands, to meet future economic, environmental and climatic challenges” £606K 

  Previous key projects (5 years prior to 2026)

• 2023-2026 (PI) DEFRA/ InnovateUK (IUK: 10055702) “Breeding low methane sheep” (led by Innovis with 9 other industry and academic partners) £2.94M
• 2019 – 2023 ICT-AGRI call : ‘On novel technologies, solutions and systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in animal production systems’ (Defra-funded)     “Grass To Gas: Strategies to mitigate GHG emissions from pasture-based sheep systems” (with INRAE France; AgResearch NZ; Teagasc Ireland; NMBU Norway; INIA Uruguay; Sheep Ireland), €1.2M
• 2021-2022 Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture “GREENANIMO: Strengthening research and innovation capacity for grazing livestock meat production in Bulgaria through advanced knowledge transfer” (with Trakia University, Bulgaria; INRAE, France), £60.4K
• 2018-2022 EU H2020 (ID 772787) SMARTER: Small Ruminant Breeding  for Efficiency and Resilience (with 27 organisations), €7M
• 2020 – 2024 EU H2020 (Innovative Action No. 862050) “TechCare: Integrating innovative technologies along the value chain to improve small ruminant welfare management” (with 18 other partners from 9 countries), €5.7M
• 2021- 2023 EU H2020 (Thematic Network No. 101000471) “Sm@RT: Small Ruminant Technologies” (with 10 other partners from 8 countries), €2M
• 2020 – 2023 EU H2020 (Thematic Network No. 863056) “EuroSheep: European network for interactive and innovative knowledge exchange on animal health and nutrition” (with 11 partners from 8 countries), €2M
• 2016-2022 (co-I) Scottish Government (RESAS) “Assessing the overall sustainability of upland sheep systems in terms of production, economics, animal health, welfare and wider environmental impact” £700K