UK bodies give £100m for academic medical training

New funding of up to £100m ($164m; £146m) to increase training opportunities for doctors wanting to work in medical research and education was announced this week by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Departments of Health for England and Wales.

The new funding follows recommendations made earlier this year by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) subcommittee for medically and dentally qualified academics in response to growing concern about a drop in the number of junior academic staff in the United Kingdom in the past few years. A survey by the Council of Heads of Medical Schools (CHMS) and the Council of Heads and Deans of Dental Schools (CHDDS) published in June 2005 found that the number of clinical academics fell from 3617 to 3555 between 2003 and 2004 and that there had been …