On 1 June, Dr Mark Walport formally occupied the Director's office of the Wellcome Trust. It was not an entirely new experience, however, as Dr Walport brings a wealth of experience of the organisation to the role. "I started as a Panel member, then I was a Panel chairman and after that I became a Governor, so I really have seen all aspects of the Trust."

His experience as a Governor is a definite benefit, he suggests, though he is keen to stress the distinct roles of Governor and Director. "I think being a Governor provides a tremendous oversight into what the Trust does but the job of Director is very different. The Director is the chief executive leading the operations of the Trust. That's a very challenging and stimulating job. There's always a learning curve but I'm well prepared."

Well prepared enough to have an immediate impact. With the benefits of a two-month 'run-in' period before his official start, he has been able to outline a new approach to the Wellcome Trust's biomedical research funding programmes. Central to his vision is the creation of six new funding streams (see Funding Streams box below).

Why did he think change was necessary? "The Wellcome Trust approach to science funding has been process-driven rather than science-led," he suggests. "I want to put the science itself at the heart of everything we do." Under the current model, the Trust is structured primarily around different modes of funding - project and programme support, or units and centres, or fellowships. In the new model, the scientific streams will take pre-eminence with the mechanisms of funding providing the tools by which the Trust's mission can be achieved.

"I don't have major criticisms of the work that has been supported," emphasises Dr Walport. "The Trust has been supporting many first-class grants and they've been toughly peer-reviewed. But in terms of the Trust understanding how it's achieving its mission and its strategic objectives, it's not the best structure. So the proposal is to move to a science-led model where we understand the science and evaluate it much better than hitherto."

Filling the strategy gap

At the heart of the Wellcome Trust's strategy is its first 'corporate plan', Planning for the Future: the Wellcome Trust 2000-2005. For the first time this set out the Wellcome Trust's mission and key aims and objectives. For Dr Walport, the objective is now to build upon this document and to fill the gap between the high-level aims and what the Trust actually does in practice.

There is no need for radical change, he suggests. The four high-level aims remain valid today, and signal the areas in which the Trust will operate. "Ultimately they're about making a difference, through research, through people, through public engagement - all things that are very sound objectives. The question is how you do it."

The issue becomes more acute in a period of financial stringency. "We'll continue funding an enormous amount of money," he points out, "well in excess of £400 million a year. The fact that there is a bit less money is an incentive to look quite carefully at everything we do. It forces one to make choices, and as someone who's just coming into a job, having a powerful reason to look right across the board is an opportunity."

This closer scrutiny means a greater emphasis on evaluation. Nevertheless, evaluation of scientific research is notoriously difficult. What is 'good science'? How can it be measured? How important is practical application? What about spin-off benefits, such as capacity development, or new technologies? Dr Walport is well aware he has set a difficult challenge, and he is wary of some of the simple quantitative measures on which many evaluations are based. "I start from the default position that the only way to evaluate a piece of scientific research is to read the scientific paper. I think there is a real problem with most of the surrogate measures such as where you publish. How much you publish, quantity, is not a surrogate for quality."

Moreover, he suggests, he sees applicants themselves as making a major contribution to this process. Perhaps applicants should be asked to articulate clearly what they are actually trying to achieve: "I think a good question for someone in a fellowship interview is, how will we know whether your fellowship has been successful?"

Over longer timescales, information from evaluations provides the raw material from which strategy can be assessed and developed. Will we see money being directed by strategic considerations? "Yes, I think that's absolutely right."

The more immediate aim is to establish what the baseline strategy actually is, bearing in mind current circumstances. "The strategy has to be built on what it is we are doing at the moment," argues Dr Walport. "You can't develop a strategy by taking a group of people, sitting them in a dark room and saying 'develop a strategy for us'. It doesn't work." He also acknowledges the need for plurality of approach, an awareness that what the Trust is trying to achieve will differ subtly across the full range of its activities. He sees many inputs into this process - Governors, Trust staff, members of advisory committees and grant applicants themselves, who will be encouraged to consider the best way to undertake evaluation.

What difference will all this make to grant applicants? Here Dr Walport sees two strands of change. On the one hand, the process of applying for support needs to be streamlined, with, for example, more emphasis on electronic forms. At the second level he sees subtle changes to the assessment of applications: "I think that we may be concentrating much more on the track record of applicants, particularly of established investigators, and we'll start asking investigators how they think we ought to evaluate their grants. And I think we will become more interested in looking at the outputs and outcomes of the grants that we fund."

Special attention will need to be paid to people at the start of their research careers, who have not yet had the opportunity to build up track records. "Clearly it's more risky supporting new investigators but also more exciting, because it's the up and coming investigators that are the stars of the future. And one has to be imaginative in supporting them."

Imagination is a recurring theme with Dr Walport. The Trust is fortunate, he suggests, that it has high-quality scientists prepared to provide the benefit of their experience and expertise on panels. A challenge for the Trust is to ensure that best use can be made of this experience and expertise. The new strategy committees will be taking a step back and considering the bigger issues. "These will be brainstorming committees which will look at the science that the Trust funds, look at the opportunities, look at possible partners, and try and develop the most imaginative ways of funding the research." In addition to the funding streams, the Trust will continue to have an unallocated pot of money that can be drawn upon to support one-off initiatives of major strategic importance where funding streams do not have the mechanisms to provide support.

Priorities

Over time, the balance of funding through the streams may change, in line with emerging opportunities or to build on outstanding breakthroughs. Flexibility should be built in, argues Dr Walport, and many areas of science are well placed to take advantage. "The UK is punching well above its weight, that's the first thing to say. There's a whole diverse range of science where UK science is doing very well. I think we probably have a very good balance to our portfolio at the moment. I don't see a huge immediate shift to that."

A subject close to his heart is clinical, patient-oriented research - not surprising, as this reflects his own career upbringing. Like many others, Dr Walport is concerned about its prospects. "There has been something of a crisis in patient-oriented research and I think that's been recognised internationally." Several factors have contributed, he suggests. "Partly it's because clinical patient-oriented research is very difficult to do - technically, intellectually; people are much more variable than mice and systems in test tubes. It's very difficult to do good experiments." Even clinical scientists interested in research often end up shying away from such difficulties and choosing to pursue basic research. "We have to encourage an environment that allows them to come in with clinical research projects," he argues.

Clinical career pathways represent another major obstacle. Dr Walport contrasts the situation in the UK with that in the USA, where there are parallel training pathways for doctors in research and clinical medicine. "We simply do not have that parallel track in the UK, and it takes such a long time to train clinically in the UK in a speciality that it's very difficult to combine the careers. So we really do need to work hard and I think this is going to be a partnership activity. The Trust made an important contribution through its fellowship schemes and Clinical Research Facilities. But I think we need to work in partnership with the Research Councils, the NHS and the Royal Colleges to enhance that more."

In terms of international funding, Dr Walport once again sees the question in terms of science: what location is most appropriate bearing in mind the science being done? "There are many questions in human and animal health that are best answered overseas. Malaria is a good example. If you wanted to do trials of vaccines or trials of treatment, or ask questions about the host response to the parasite, then those must be done in places where there is lots of malaria. On the other hand, if you want to ask questions about the malaria genome then that's probably best done in well-equipped laboratories that have lots of sequencers."

Eclecticism

Dr Walport takes charge of an organisation of staggering diversity - across science, but also technology transfer, history, ethics, public engagement and art. Is this a strength or a weakness. "Oh, it's a tremendous strength. Looking at medical research in the context of society gives one a much greater understanding of the opportunities and the implications. And it makes the Trust an absolutely fascinating place in which to work."

Dr Walport believes that bringing technology transfer back within the fold of the Trust has put the Trust on track to make a greater impact in a key area: "I think that we have an important role in facilitating technology transfer. Given that our mission includes improving human and animal health, one of the ways to do that is to fund the development of new discoveries to the point at which they will be picked up by industry to be developed into new treatments."

But there are areas where market solutions are not the complete answer to getting new treatments developed, not least in the production of medicines for infectious diseases affecting developing nations. Here, Dr Walport again sees the potential for partnerships. As well as funding its own research, the Trust has joined the Medicines for Malaria Venture and is in discussion with other partners on other initiatives. "The fundamental thing is that partnerships ought to be about things that can be done together that can't be done by organisations alone. Maybe through scale, or maybe through complementary skills or expertise, but I'd see partnerships as essential to our function. It's only through partnerships that we can fund so successfully in UK universities. Hardly any of our work can be done without some form of partnership."

Partnerships have also lain at the heart of many of the Trust's public engagement activities, with exhibitions at nationally important museums such as the Science Museum and the British Museum, and a major joint initiative with the Department for Education and Skills to establish a nationwide network of science learning centres for science teachers. Dr Walport sees such work as central to the Trust, even if quantitatively it is dwarfed by expenditure on biomedical research. A key factor, he suggests, is once again the environment - do we have an environment conducive to the practice of medical science? A plurality of approaches will be needed to help build relationships between scientific and other communities, and to see science firmly embedded as part of the country's life and culture.

It is perhaps appropriate that Mark Walport joins the Trust as the 'Medicine Man' exhibition opens at the British Museum. Like Henry Wellcome, Dr Walport is a collector, with a fascination for natural history and books. It provides a link back to the Trust's founder: "I feel a deep kindred spirit to Henry Wellcome. Unfortunately, I don't have his resources!"

Related links

• Planning for the Future: The Wellcome Trust 2000-2005: Strategy document PDF available to download