Funding news: 2009
2 February 2009
Over the past year the financial markets and prevailing economic conditions have presented an extremely challenging operating environment for research funding charities. The diversity of our asset base and the decisive actions of our investment team have protected us from the worst falls in the markets. However, our asset base at the close of our last financial year was £13.1 billion as compared with £15.1 billion for the previous year.
We spend only a small proportion of our endowment each year and therefore, despite the change in value of our investment portfolio, we are not planning major changes to our spending commitments.
Against this backdrop, over the next financial year we will commit around £590 million to support biomedical research in the UK and internationally, as compared to £620 million in 2007/08. In addition, we will also make funds available to support a number of large-scale strategic projects.
Our response-mode funding will remain the single largest element of our annual expenditure. Given that the unprecedented economic conditions affect all funders, we do expect increased pressure on our budgets and we are already seeing increasing numbers of applications, which will inevitably raise the level of competition for grants. We will therefore continue to prioritise funding the brightest people and the best ideas.