When the brain changes, we change. When it is struck by a tumour, an injury or a disease, the consequences can be devastating. We fund research to advance understanding of the changes that take place in the brain, and how these can be overcome.
Our funding is currently focused on three priority research areas: brain tumours, brain and spinal cord injury, and headache and facial pain. These are areas where there is a large unmet patient need that is not reflected in current funding levels. By concentrating our efforts on these three areas, we can have a more significant impact.
Our research grants are awarded through national, openly-advertised funding schemes and follow a rigorous peer review process. We have previously offered two types of grant: project grants and PhD studentships.
We carried out a review of our research strategy in 2024, following which we elected to maintain the same three priority areas, but to replace our PhD studentships with a new post-doctoral fellowship scheme. We believe that this will help us better achieve our aim of building research capacity in these priority areas. The post-doctoral fellowship scheme will also include funding for clinical PhD studentships.
In addition to our national funding schemes, we make a small number of awards via restricted endowment funds that are ring-fenced for research at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.
