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UK group puts £74m into research infrastructure

The UK Clinical Research Collaboration announced the launch of a £74m ($138m; €108m) package to boost experimental research in the United Kingdom last week. It announced that the money would go towards building a nationwide infrastructure dedicated exclusively to patient based medical research. The partnership comprises the Department of Health and the Scottish Health Executive as well as the Wellcome Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, and the Medical Research Council. Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said that whereas in the past research staff had been expected to share equipment and premises primarily used for treatment, £30m will be spent on purpose built environments for use by university and hospital trust research teams. “Research has traditionally been embedded in the health service, but increasingly there's a realisation that it might be better done elsewhere,” he said. The collaboration, which was established in April 2004, is also working on building up a central database to map activity and allow comparison between projects. Five facilities have already been developed on hospital premises with Wellcome Trust funding. Premises in Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Southampton are being used to investigate areas such as extreme obesity and the relationship between diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. Although Sally Davies, director of research and development at the Department of Health, said there would be a drive to promote research in the department's priority areas, which include mental health, diabetes, strokes, and Alzheimer's disease, Dr Walport warned that it would be inadvisable to try to dictate the direction of research. “Telling people what to investigate is a dangerous route,” he said. “We want professionals to use their skills, their background, and their imagination.” In addition, £15m is being spent on new research grants. A formal call for applications will go out in September this year, but prospective applicants have already been invited to approach the collaboration with ideas. Decisions on funding are expected to be made by spring next year. Representatives from the major agencies involved explained that the collaboration aimed to inject fresh life into the UK research sector. The numbers of clinical academic staff working on the front line in hospitals have declined by 3% a year in the past five years and clinical lecturers by 5%. “There is a feeling that the pressures on the NHS to get patients out of the door have to some extent discouraged clinical research,” said Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council. “This is a chance to reinvent clinical research, not only in volume but also in style and quality.” The Department of Health is the biggest contributor to the scheme, pledging £5m over the next five years (£25m in total) to build the NHS infrastructure necessary to support the work. The health departments of Wales and Northern Ireland are expected to sign up in May. “Collaborations of this type can make the UK a world leader in clinical research,” said Dr Walport. It is hoped that in addition the facilities will attract interest from the biotechnology sector.