"Issues in Research Funding Allocation". Abstract Charities, governments and other funders of research must prioritise the areas in which they allocate research funding. An old but unresolved issue, is the weight that should be given to questions that the general public feel need urgent answers. Other groups remind us of the unsolved pressing issues of the developing world and the responsibility we have developing preventive measures and treatments for tropical and orphan diseases. This keynote lecture, delivered by Professor Martin Bobrow, will introduce us to some considerations relating to science funding in this. Should global disease priorities, achievability of research goals or research quality be guiding funding allocation? As a society, do we need ethical guidelines that would drive future research agendas? Are these guidelines more urgently needed in recession times? Speaker Martin Bobrow studied medicine in South Africa. He worked in Edinburgh and Oxford, before becoming Professor of Medical Genetics in Amsterdam, London and then Cambridge in 1995. He retired from this post in 2005. He has been Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust, Chairman of ULTRA (Unrelated Living Transplant Regulating Authority), Chairman of COMARE (Department of Health Advisory Committee on radiation in the Environment), Deputy Chairman of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and a member of the Medical Research Council and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission.

1. Research Council priority programmes
Digital Economy
Energy
Global Food Security
Global Uncertainties
Lifelong Health and Wellbeing
Living with Environmental Change
(BIS 2010)

2. What broad principles guide (and restrain)
those who allocate research funds?
•What is research? Very varied; principles should be
generalisable
•Is source of funds (government vs. charity vs.
commercial) of over-riding importance?
•Should research findings be for the “public good”? And if
so, what exactly IS the public good?

3. 2010/11 Government Research Spend
(£1000’s)
Research Councils 2,549,353
AHRC 100,717
BBSRC 362,341
EPSRC 771,289
ESRC 158,061
MRC 545,585
NERC 298,071
HEFCE 1,731,300
QR Research 1,618,300
National Academies 87,832
Royal Society 48,558
British Academy 26,448
Royal Academy of Engineering 12,826
Science & Society 15,441
International 5,104
UK Space Agency 163,805
Total S&R Resource 4,575,906 Adapted from BIS 2010

4. What do funding panels consider?
•Originality
•Importance of question/impact of result
•Timeliness/tractability
•Track record
•“Science quality” – how well is the project
thought through?
•Applicability/commercial potential
•Costs/value
•strategic fit

5. AHRC funds research, training and knowledge exchange in the arts and
humanities. Its strategic goal is to deliver world-leading research that:
§ furthers understanding of human society, culture and creativity;
§ analyses historical and social context, and the interpretation of experiences,
identities and cultural assumptions; and
§ creates social and economic benefits directly and indirectly through
improvement in social and intellectual capital, social networking, community
identity, learning and skills and quality of life.
(BIS 2010)

7. Approximate annual R&D spend, UK
MRC
NIHR
Big charities
pharma
Extracted from NESTA 2011

9. Two common strategic directives:
•Translational research
•Tropical infectious diseases and other
work of benefit to people in poor
countries