Spending review 2002

15 July 2002

The Wellcome Trust welcomes today's Government announcement of a real terms increase in the Science Budget funding for universities and research councils of 10% per year over the three years starting in 2003/4 following its Spending Review.

This much needed funding boost will go a significant way to alleviate the under-funding that university researchers in the UK have faced over recent decades. Wellcome is particularly pleased that the Government has taken steps to address the shortfall in the funding of university infrastructure and research projects and hopes that this support will become a permanent feature of government funding for science in the UK. Wellcome also warmly welcomes the Government's commitment to increase salaries for research students and young researchers so that they are broadly comparable with those funded by Wellcome.

A raft of new initiatives has been unveiled by Wellcome, the world's largest independent medical research charity, in response to the government's Spending Review.

The schemes, which have an additional funding of £280m over five years, span the spectrum of activities supported by the Trust whose goal is to improve human and animal health. They range from supporting science teachers to training young researchers in universities and translating biomedical research results into medical treatments and cures.

" These schemes will ensure we give extensive support all the way from the classroom through early stage career development, right up to the translation of discoveries into real health benefits," said Dr. Mike Dexter, Director of the Wellcome Trust. "This continuum is vital if we are to keep Britain at the forefront of science and for the Wellcome Trust to achieve its mission of improving human and animal health."

The schemes include:

• National Centre: Improving teaching in science:
This is a joint initiative with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) which will help teachers improve science lessons in the classroom.

Wellcome will contribute up to £25m for the costs of the building, setting-up and running of the centre.

• Flexible Resources : Awards totalling £90m will give researchers at the laboratory bench more freedom and power to make their own funding decisions.

o Around £30m for "Value in People" grants will be awarded to selected universities to help them kick-start the careers of promising young scientists.

o A further £60m of Flexibility Funding Awards will be awarded to Wellcome-funded researchers to meet those extra unanticipated direct costs associated with their research projects.

"Talented young people, with an interest in research, are often best recognised by academics in the universities themselves. The Value in People awards will be made to selected universities where they can be flexibly used to nurture promising young people with an interest in clinical or basic research and enable them to progress to a stage where they can independently apply to Wellcome and other funding bodies for their own support. This is how my career started and that of many of my senior colleagues" said Dr Mike Dexter.

• Large Scale Equipment Grants : There will also be an extra £30m for large state-of-the-art equipment to be shared by scientists working on different research projects in universities.

• Post Genomic Buildings Development : The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will benefit from £95m allowing it to undertake a major expansion of academic facilities to help researchers unravel the way genes influence our health in the post genomic era, building on the results of the Human Genome Project.

• Translation : This £40m programme will encourage research results to be converted into real health benefits for humans and animals by enabling Wellcome-funded research to be developed to a stage where it can be taken up by industry.

• University Translation Awards will enable university technology transfer offices to manage the commercialisation of research while

• Strategic Translation Awards will help translate the research results of Wellcome's own strategic research programmes.

Ends.

Editor's notes:

In July 1998 the Wellcome Trust contributed £300m to the Joint Infrastructure Fund for science and engineering. The government allocated £450m.

Two years later the £1bn Science Research Investment Fund succeeded JIF with the continued aim of improving research facilities, refurbishing premises and providing new equipment. The Trust committed £225m and the government £775m.

In March 2000 the Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, announced a new synchrotron - used to determine the structure of complex molecules, such as proteins - would be built at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Didcot, Oxford. The Wellcome Trust has pledged £110m to the construction and running costs of this venture with the government.

For further information please contact:
Barry Gardner, Wellcome Trust Press Office.
0207 611 7329 / 8285.
b.gardner@wellcome.ac.uk