Recession takes toll on grants from medical research charities

doi:10.1136/bmj.b2177

Published 29 May 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2177
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2177

News

Recession takes toll on grants from medical research charities

Jo Waters

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A quarter of the United Kingdom’s medical research charitieshave already cut grants as a direct result of the recession,a new survey carried out by the Association of Medical ResearchCharities has shown.

Of the 59 of the total of 63 charities that responded to thequestion about funding levels, just over half (30) respondentssaid that they were maintaining their spending on research forthe current financial year, but one in four (15) admitted theywere cutting their spending on grants by between 10% and 40%.And more than three quarters predicted that the economic downturnwould have a significant impact on their work.

The association, which represents 117 charities that betweenthem provided £936m ( ${euro}$ 1.1bn; $1.5bn) of research grantsin 2008, has called on the government and public donors to helpthem weather the downturn.