© 2005 Nature Publishing Group

PERSPECTIVES

purposes. Similarly, our defense against aggres-sion demands new knowledge so that we candevelop new and improved weapons. Thisessential, new knowledge can be obtainedonly through basic scientific research.” Theimportant eventual outcome of this reportwas the formation of the US National ScienceFoundation, which has had a key role in sup-porting basic sciences in the US since itsfoundation in 1950.

Similar rhetoric to that of Vannevar Bushhas been included in government reports onboth sides of the Atlantic ever since. For exam-ple, the Science and Innovation InvestmentFramework 2, which was published as part ofthe 2004 spending review by Her Majesty’sTreasury (HM Treasury; see the online linksbox), in the United Kingdom, starts:“Harness-ing innovation in Britain is key to improvingthe country’s future wealth creation prospects.For the UK economy to succeed in generatinggrowth through productivity and employ-ment in the coming decade, it must investmore strongly than in the past in its knowledge

base, and translate this knowledge moreeffectively into business and public serviceinnovation.” This investment framework re-affirms Vannevar Bush’s principle of fundingexcellent basic research and outlines how theUK government intends to encourage knowl-edge transfer. The fact that this is a 10-yearframework seems to be evidence that the UKgovernment is taking a longer-term view, rec-ognizing that the fruits of research take longerto ripen than a 3-year spending review cycle.

What are the current origins of the cashthat fuels the research enterprise? The threemain sources are government, charities andindustry, and the research itself is carried outpredominantly in three settings — universi-ties, research institutes and industry. Theinter-relationships among and between thesuppliers of research funds and those thatcarry out research are therefore key to thesuccess of the research endeavour. Theseinter-relationships and the UK research land-scape are the focus of this article. First, webriefly consider the factors that regulate thesupply of money for research. We then con-sider how funding agencies dispense moneyand, finally, we analyse whether the partner-ship arrangements for the funding of researchin the UK are optimal.

How can the cash flow be maximized? There are two central questions for the agen-cies that fund research: how can the funds fordistribution be sustained or increased, andwhat is the best way to distribute these funds?For agencies that are funded from the publicpurse or from collecting tins, the two ques-tions are related. It is much easier to generatefurther funds if important results have beendelivered from previous rounds of funding.This point presents a particularly acute prob-lem for government agencies that are fundedby politicians, who are working to electoraltimetables and who would like to show thattheir policy or funding decisions have led totangible benefits. In 1966, US PresidentLyndon Johnson said: “Now Presidents …need to show more interest in what the

Abstract | In July 2004, the UK governmentpublished a 10-year science and innovationframework aimed at providing a morestrategic, partnership-based approach todelivering science. With the aim of creatinga UK society that is confident about thegovernance, regulation and use of scienceand technology, how can we sustain orincrease the supply of money for research,how should funding agencies dispensemoney, and how can we optimize thepartnership arrangements for the fundingof research?

Today, governments of the leading economicpowers aspire to support basic and appliedscientific research from the public purse. Thishas not always been the case; before the twen-tieth century, research was mostly funded pri-vately or by industry. Looking back to theUnited States in 1945, the visionary engineerand scientific administrator Vannevar Bush(FIG. 1), who directed the wartime Office ofScientific Research and Development, pre-sented a report to President Roosevelt. Thereport was entitled Science The EndlessFrontier1 and outlined the future means ofsupporting scientific research after the end of the war. The introductory paragraph of thesummary is worth quoting in full and,indeed, the rest of the report is well worthreading: “Progress in the war against diseasedepends on a flow of new scientific knowl-edge. New products, new industries, andmore jobs require continuous additions toknowledge of the laws of nature, and theapplication of that knowledge to practical

NATURE REVIEWS | MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY VOLUME 6 | APRIL 2005 | 341

Research funding, partnership andstrategy — a UK perspective

Mark J. Walport and David W. Lynn

S C I E N C E A N D S O C I E T Y

“…we need to engage in abroader debate on theimpact of research —accounts of life-savingdiscoveries … or simply ofdiscoveries that aredownright interesting.”

© 2005 Nature Publishing Group

342 | APRIL 2005 | VOLUME 6 www.nature.com/reviews/molcellbio

P E R S P E C T I V E S

Provoked by pressures similar to thosegenerated by Lyndon Johnson, who needledthe scientific community further by saying:“We must make sure that no lifesaving discov-ery is locked up in the laboratory”3, there hasbeen some work to establish the history of thescientific background behind importantadvances. In 1976, Comroe and Dripps6

attempted to analyse systematically the scien-tific family tree that lies behind the top tenclinical advances in cardiovascular and pul-monary medicine and surgery (see also theScientific Basis for the Support of BiomedicalScience in the online links box). They identi-fied 529 key articles that were behind theseadvances and found that 41% of thesereported the results of basic enquiry with noreference to disease. They used this study asammunition to argue: “…that a generousportion of the nation’s biomedical researchdollars should be used to identify and then toprovide long-term support for creative scien-tists whose main goal is to learn how livingorganisms function, without regard to theimmediate relation of their research to specific human diseases.” A recent study7

attempted, and failed, to replicate the method-ology and results of Comroe and Dripps withrespect to five important advances in neonatalintensive care. The investigators ended upusing a different methodology, in which theycarried out a bibliometric analysis of thearticles that were cited by the most recentresearch papers on each of the five advances,and then moved back through four ‘genera-tions’ of citations. They found that just2–21% of these fourth-generation paperswere of a basic scientific nature. However, thetwo advances with the lowest percentage ofbasic precursors — parental nutrition (4%)and ultrasound (2%) — were, by their nature,not likely to receive citations of basic papers.Clinical ultrasound imagers are unlikely tocite the basic physics behind the developmentof ultrasound imaging.

Joshua Lederberg, an American geneti-cist and microbiologist who received aNobel prize in 1958 for his work on bacter-ial genetics, presented a prescription forfunding agencies in 1991: “…simply put, thebest way to administer a creative researchenvironment is to find people of great talentand reasonable ambition — whatever theirspecific disciplines — and leave them totheir own devices.”8 This approach has meritand is certainly the prescription used for alarge fraction of the funding that is pro-vided by, for example, the Wellcome Trust.But, is this approach, which uses the ‘intellect-ual Brownian motion’ of clever scientists,sufficient for a biomedical funding agency?

ideas — you just give us the money’, whereasthe message from the donors of the money is,‘we have problems that need solving and weneed economic returns — work on this please’.Both views are correct and a balance is neededbetween these approaches.

The bottom–up approach to funding. At onelevel, the most important applied discoveriesare underpinned by basic ‘blue skies’ research.For example, a huge amount of physicsunderlies computed-tomography and mag-netic-resonance imaging techniques. In addi-tion, the development of the drug imatinib(STI-571 or Glivec) as a treatment for chronicmyeloid leukaemia4 and of anti-tumournecrosis factor antibodies as a treatment forrheumatoid arthritis5 were the culmination ofmore than 50 years of basic research into eachdisease in laboratories around the world.Systematically dissecting the links betweenbasic research and key outcomes is not aneasy task, and why would we want to bother?There are two reasons. First, politicians andthe public might instinctively want their taxesto be used for applied research rather than toindulge the curiosity of ‘academics in ivorytowers’. Second, the funding agencies them-selves are forced to make choices betweencompeting applications for funds, and wouldlike to be able to pick the ‘winners’.

specific results of medical research are duringtheir lifetime and during their administration… And we are determined that the vital linkbetween pure research and practical achieve-ment will never be broken.”3 Evidence ofsuccessful outcomes in scientific research isnecessary to ensure that public investment inresearch is sustained.

For endowed charities, such as theWellcome Trust (BOX 1), the distribution offunds is dependent on investment perfor-mance coupled with a spending policy thatbalances the needs of present and futurepotential beneficiaries. There is less pressure onindependent endowments for quick results,although the charity staff, trustees and any liv-ing benefactors also feel pressure to have tangi-ble outcomes within their individual tenures.

There are important implications of theseissues for the scientific community. It is essen-tial that scientists collaborate with their fundproviders in communicating with politicians,the public and the media. What do politi-cians, the public and the media need? Firstand foremost, they need good stories, and weneed to engage in a broader debate on theimpact of research — accounts of life-savingdiscoveries, of important insights into thenatural world, of wealth generation as a resultof research, or simply of discoveries that aredownright interesting. All of these need to becommunicated in an interesting and relevant,but also unbiased, way. To help ensure thatwe maintain our ‘licence to operate’ we allhave to work harder to communicate theresults of our research outside of our imme-diate peer groups and to engage fully, ratherthan just have a one-way communication,with politicians, the public and the media.We also have a responsibility to provide bal-anced and neutral advice on the implicationsof scientific progress, as well as the best scien-tific appraisal of how changes in the naturaland man-made world will make their impact.Engaging these assorted audiences will, ofcourse, require various approaches and mightmean that we have to operate outside of ourusual ‘comfort zones’.

How should the money be spent?Science in the UK has always had a strongstrategic component. One of the principalobjectives of the Royal Greenwich Observ-atory, London, which was established in 1675by King Charles II, was to resolve the problemof determining longitude at sea for the benefitof naval and commercial fleets. However, a keytension for all funding agencies occurs betweenthe bottom–up and this top–down approachto support for research. The message from thescientific community is,‘leave us to have good

Figure 1 | Vannevar Bush (1890–1974). TheAmerican visionary, engineer and scientificadministrator, who directed the wartime Officeof Scientific Research and Development in the United States. Image courtesy of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology Museum© 2005.

© 2005 Nature Publishing Group

P E R S P E C T I V E S

Funding agencies can help to facilitate collab-orations between research groups and acrossdisciplines. The task of developing an HIV vac-cine is one that has so far eluded conventionalgrant-funding approaches. However, the devel-opment of the Global HIV/AIDS VaccineEnterprise , which was originaly proposed byKlausner et al.10 in 2003, offers a coordinatedapproach between fund-makers and the scien-tific community to tackle this immenselytough, but crucial, scientific problem. Thispoint leads us to the last section of this article,which addresses the question of how researchagencies should work with each other, thegovernment and the research community.

UK collaborations and partnerships The UK is in an unusual position with respectto the funding of biomedical research for tworeasons. The first is the unusual strength of itscharitable sector. The second is the ‘dual-support’ system that provides universitieswith funds directly in the form of grants from

Furthermore, when funds are limited, choiceshave to be made and this can only be donein a funding agency that has a clear strategicframework that enables rational decisionsto be made.

The top–down approach to funding. Thetop–down approach starts with a scientificproblem and creates an ecological niche forthe scientific community by providing foodin the form of money. There are two prob-lems with this approach. The first is ‘unripetime’ — that is, working on a problem whenthe necessary toolkit is not available to scien-tists. President Nixon’s War on Cancer, whichwas initiated in 1971, was not a huge successbecause the molecular tools were not widelyavailable to tackle the problem at that time.The second problem is the danger of fundingsecond-rate science to use ring-fenced funds.

As Sydney Brenner9 argues, identifyinggood science involves identifying scientistswho have important questions to answer cou-pled with sound experimental approaches.However, there seems to be an attractivemiddle ground between the bottom–up andtop–down approaches. There are areas ofbiomedical science that, using the languageof the pharmaceutical industry, can be clas-sified as ‘unmet need’. Tropical infectiousdiseases, malaria and other less commonparasitic diseases such as trypanosomiasisand leishmaniasis are obvious candidates.These conditions are under-researched byboth the scientific and pharmaceutical com-munities for different reasons: in the case of thescientific community, it is because they aregenerally not exposed to these diseases; and inthe case of the pharmaceutical industry, it isbecause they can make no money from them.Surely it makes sense for grant agencies to iden-tify this unmet need and to create a financialniche that will persuade first-class scientists toput their minds to solving this problem.

The Grand Challenges in Global Healthprogramme (see the online links box), fundedby the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, isan example of an excellent approach to stim-ulating scientific activity in this arena. Theworld’s scientific community was asked toidentify the important questions and the roadblocks to progression. Fourteen ‘grand chal-lenges’ were then selected by an expert com-mittee. These challenges formed the basis ofan invitation to the world’s scientific commu-nity to propose first-class approaches thatwould provide solutions.

A further strategic role for funding agen-cies is to catalyse cooperation and collabora-tion between scientists. The Human GenomeProject has been the most important exampleof the success of this approach. However, at asmaller level, it makes no sense for these agen-cies to support duplicative population orgenetic studies that are individually under-powered but that could give importantanswers if combined from the outset.

NATURE REVIEWS | MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY VOLUME 6 | APRIL 2005 | 343

Box 1 | Fund providers and partnerships

Association of Medical Research Charities(http://www.amrc.org.uk). A membership organization of the leading UK charities that fundmedical and health research. It provides support and leadership for the charity sector involved inmedical and health research.

Higher Education Funding Council for England(http://www.hefce.ac.uk). Distributes public money for teaching and research to universities andcolleges in England. It promotes high-quality education and research within a financially healthysector, and also has a key role in ensuring accountability and promoting good practice.

Medical Research Council(http://www.mrc.ac.uk). Funded by the UK government. This funding body promotes researchinto all areas of medically-related science.

National Cancer Research Institute(http://www.ncri.org.uk). A UK initiative that brings together the main cancer-research fundingbodies from the government, charity and private sectors. Its purpose is to accelerate and advancecancer research for the benefit of patients and the UK cancer-research community.

The Academy of Medical Sciences(http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk). Brings together biomedical scientists and clinical academics soadvances in medical science can be made and translated as quickly as possible into benefits forpatients.

The Wellcome Trust(http://www.wellcome.ac.uk). An independent charity that funds research to improve humanand animal health. Established in 1936 and with an endowment of ~£10 billion, it is the UK’slargest non-government source of funds for biomedical research.

UK Clinical Research Collaboration(http://www.ukcrc.org). This new body has been given the task of speeding up the developmentof new medicines and treatments — that is, moving them more quickly from the laboratory tothe patient’s bedside — by expanding the number and range of clinical trials. It consists ofrepresentatives of the main funding bodies for clinical research in the UK.

UK Research Base Funders’ Forum(http://www.ost.gov.uk/fundersforum). Enables government and non-government funders ofresearch for the ‘public good’ to consider the collective impact of their strategies on thesustainability, health and outputs on the UK research base.

“…there seems to be anattractive middle groundbetween the bottom–upand top–down approaches.There are areas ofbiomedical science that,using the language of thepharmaceutical industry,can be classified as ‘unmet need’. ”

© 2005 Nature Publishing Group

344 | APRIL 2005 | VOLUME 6 www.nature.com/reviews/molcellbio

P E R S P E C T I V E S

issues with the public and politicians. Publicengagement is not an optional extra and, inthe future, funding agencies will probablyplace greater emphasis on the public-engagement activities of the scientists thatthey fund.

The research landscape — how we fundand how we do research — is changing, and abalance needs to be struck between support-ing basic ‘blue skies’ research and focusingresources on strategic areas. Funders need toensure that their support results in meaning-ful ouputs and outcomes, and scientists andthe public need to engage more to ensure thatthe science agenda is shaped in such a waythat is acceptable to society.

Mark J. Walport and David W. Lynn are at the Wellcome Trust, 215 Euston Road,

London NW1 2BE, UK.e-mails: m.walport@wellcome.ac.uk;

d.lynn@wellcome.ac.uk

doi:10.1038/nrm1617Published online 15 March 2005

1. Bush, V. Science The Endless Frontier: A Report to thePresident by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office ofScientific Research and Development, July 1945.(US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1945).

2. HM Treasury, Department of Trade and Industry,Department for Education and Skills. Science &Innovation Investment Framework, 2004–2014.(Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 2004).

3. Comroe, J. H. & Dripps, R. D. Scientific basis for thesupport of biomedical science. Science 192,105–111(1976).

4. Druker, B. J. & Lydon, N. B. Lessons learned from thedevelopment of an Abl tyrosine kinase inhibitor forchronic myelogenous leukemia. J. Clin. Invest. 105, 3–7(2000).

5. Feldmann, M. & Maini, R. N. Anti-TNFα therapy ofrheumatoid arthritis: what have we learned? Annu. Rev.Immunol. 19, 163–196 (2001).

6. Comroe, J. H. & Dripps, R. D. The Top Ten ClinicalAdvances in Cardiovascular–Pulmonary Medicine andSurgery, 1945–1975. Final Report. (US GovernmentPrinting Office, Washington DC, 1977).

7. Grant, J., Green, L. & Mason, B. From bedside to bench:Comroe and Dripps revisited. HERG Research Report 30,48 (2003).

8. Lederberg, J. Fifty years of biochemical genetics: atribute. The Scientist 5,12 (1991).

9. Brenner, S. The impact of society on science. Science282, 1411 (1998).

10. Klausner, R. et al. Medicine. The need for a global HIV vaccine enterprise. Science 300, 2036–2039(2003).

Competing interests statementThe authors declare no competing financial interests.

Online linksFURTHER INFORMATIONDepartment for Education and Skills:http://www.dfes.gov.ukDepartment of Health: http://www.dh.gov.ukDepartment of Trade and Industry: http://www.dti.gov.ukGrand Challenges in Global Health:http://www.grandchallengesgh.orgHM Treasury: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.ukOffice of Science and Technology: http://www.ost.gov.ukResearch Councils UK: http://www.rcuk.ac.ukScience The Endless Frontier:http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htmScientific Basis for the Support of Biomedical Science:http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/comroedripps_science1976.pdfUniversities UK: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.ukAccess to this interactive links box is free online.

Funders of research also have a duty tohelp create an intelligent, regulatory envi-ronment that fosters and promotes science.In this regard, the Wellcome Trust hasworked closely with the UK governmentand other funding agencies, such as theMedical Research Council (BOX 1) in theUK, over the drafting of the Human TissueBill. This Bill was drafted with the aim ofensuring that a sensible balance is struckbetween the need to protect the rights andconfidentiality of patients and their familiesand the need to safeguard research that willprovide benefits for health in the future.Similarly, the Wellcome Trust is workingwith international funders of research(including the US National Institutes ofHealth) to promote open and free access toresearch publications.

The role of the public is particularlyimportant because one of the goals of the‘scientific enterprise’ is to build a societythat is confident about the governance, reg-ulation and use of science and technology.For those who are involved in funding sci-entific studies that require the use of ani-mals to develop both our understandingand the treatment of human and animaldiseases, our licence to operate is regularlychallenged. It is important that we ensurethat animals are only used in scientific proce-dures when absolutely necessary, and that wediscuss the role of animal research in achiev-ing medical advances with the public.Equally, it is important for governments toensure that the authorities have the necessarypowers to deal with intimidatory protests.

Concluding remarksThere has been much ‘spin’ about the loss ofpublic confidence in science and scientists.However, survey data indicate that there is ahigh level of public trust in scientists andmuch less trust in those that provide the‘spin’. The scientific community should bemore self-confident, and this self-confidencemust manifest itself in more open discus-sions of important scientific results and

grant agencies, and also provides a secondstream of funding from the Higher EducationFunding Council (HEFC; BOX 1). The HEFC,in turn, receives money from the Departmentfor Education and Skills (see the online linksbox) and, in the case of Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland, from the devolved admin-istrations. University academics compete forgrants through direct applications to grantagencies. However, the amount of moneythat flows to universities from the secondstream of funds is dependent on the out-come of the Research Assessment Exercise(RAE). The RAE aims to provide a measureof the quality of the research that is under-taken by individual departments in higher-education institutions. Institutions that areconducting the best research (as measuredby the RAE) receive a larger proportion ofthe available grant.

The main benefit of the dual-support system is that it gives university vice chancel-lors strategic flexibility with respect to howthey develop and nurture their researchers.The dual-support system, together withteaching income, is the main source of thesalaries of university staff. However, the RAEand the inadequate supply of universityfunding mean that universities are underconstant pressure to conduct research at aloss. Grants from all sources, and particu-larly from research councils, governmentdepartments, the European Union and char-ities, have not supplied the full economiccosts of the research. Moving to a methodol-ogy for grant assessment that identifies thefull costs will help universities to under-stand and better recover the costs ofresearch. However, funding agencies need torecognize that their contributions to thecosts of research will rise as they begin topay the full costs. Funding agencies, includ-ing charities, contribute to the sustainabilityof the scientific enterprise in many ways,including funding new buildings, refurbish-ing laboratories and supporting new facilitiesand equipment.

In September 2003, the UK Research BaseFunders’ Forum (BOX 1) was established,which brings together the various funders ofresearch (government, industry and chari-ties). Within this forum, funders can considerthe collective impact of their strategies andpolicy changes to help ensure long-term sus-tainability of the UK research base. Other UKpartnerships that are of importance to bio-medical research include the Academy ofMedical Sciences, the Association of MedicalResearch Charities, the National CancerResearch Institute and the recently establishedUK Clinical Research Collaboration (BOX 1).

“The research landscape … is changing, and abalance needs to be struckbetween supporting basic‘blue skies’ research andfocusing resources onstrategic areas.”