Report gives snapshot health research funding in the UK

An analysis of health research in the United Kingdom funded by government and charities shows that cancer gets the largest share of funding, despite having a lower overall burden of illness than some other diseases, including cardiovascular disease.

Figure 1.

The report analysed the distribution of spending on all types of health research and programmes funded by 11 organisations, including the three largest medical research charities—the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, and the British Heart Foundation—as well as the government and the Medical Research Council. It is based on details of more than 9500 research grants totalling £950m (€1400m; $1790m) awarded during the 2004-5 financial year.

Analysis of the research funding by disease area showed that two thirds of the overall funds were spent on four disease areas. Cancer research received the largest proportion of the total funds (27%), followed by neurological diseases (16%), infection (13%), cardiovascular diseases (9%), inflammatory and immune diseases (7%), and mental health (6%).

Comparing the amount of research funding with each disease area's proportion of illness burden (measured by disability adjusted life years or DALYs), the report found that the pattern of spending on research generally matched the burden of illness.

However, cancer attracted a much greater proportion of research funding than the overall proportion of illness burden that it accounts for, while diseases of the blood system, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke received a lower proportion of funding than their proportion of the total disease burden.

The relative investment in research was lower than the burden of illness also for respiratory diseases and for oral and gastrointestinal diseases. Spending on research into infection was higher than the burden of infectious diseases in the UK.

Concerning the type of research activity, around a third of funding went towards basic research (34%), and a similar proportion was spent on research into disease causes (35%). Prevention accounted for 3% of the funding, detection and diagnosis 5%, development of treatments 9%, evaluation of treatments 9%, disease management 2%, and health services 5%.

The analysis was carried out by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, a partnership of organisations aiming to improve clinical research in the country. The research bodies belonging to the collaboration asked for the analysis to enable them to better understand how their funding fitted in to overall research patterns.

Liam O'Toole, the collaboration's chief executive, said: “This analysis is significant because it allows us to look at the full spectrum of research funding in the UK across all areas of health and disease. Nobody had this type of picture before.”

He added: “The pattern of funding we have found is a composite of 11 different research portfolios which has emerged over a period of time and has been shaped by a wide variety of different factors. There are no similar national analyses to compare this to, and there is no correct shape for the overall portfolio.”

One of the goals of the collaboration is to develop a coherent approach to funding health research. The collaboration says that mapping the current UK-wide research portfolio is a key step in this process, by creating an evidence base that can be used to inform individual and joint planning and to facilitate coordination among funders.

To achieve this the collaboration set up a central research database containing portfolios of the directly funded health research of the participating funders. It then developed a bespoke health research classification system to classify the research portfolios on the database according to the type of research activity and the area of health or disease under investigation. The research funding bodies have asked for the analysis to continue to allow tracking of research patterns over time.

The report also shows the geographical distribution of research funding among cities in the United Kingdom. London tops the list, its researchers taking 33% of funds, followed by Cambridge (12%), Oxford (9%), Edinburgh (6%), Manchester (5%), and Glasgow (4%).

After the authors of the report broke down the funding into categories such as basic research, aetiology, prevention, and detection and diagnosis, they looked at the pattern of funding within those categories by disease area. They found that in the category of research into prevention, for example, 40% of the funds were spent in the area of infection.