DOZENS of the best medical scientists are being starved of money because the Government’s funding body prefers to support speculative projects that may never help human health, a committee of MPs has found.
The Medical Research Council (MRC), which distributes more than £400 million of taxpayers’ money annually, is squandering resources on long-term schemes that are years away from producing useful results, according to a scathing report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. At the same time, it is refusing far too many high-quality grant applications by leading scientists, whose work in fields such as brain function is much more likely to lead to new therapies.
As a result, researchers are finding it impossible to plan ahead, to continue basic studies and to embark on international collaborations. The situation threatens Britain’s place at the forefront of medical research, the committee found.
Ian Gibson, its Labour chairman, said the council, which is appointed by the Government, was ignoring bread-and-butter research in favour of high-profile projects that had not been properly thought through.
“This report emanated from a series of complaints from several scientists at major elite universities who had found their grants were not being awarded,” he said. “These included Fellows of the Royal Society, and some of our most eminent experts on neuroscience and brain function. Clearly, money is being diverted into other major projects at the expense of ongoing major research.”
The report was particularly critical of the council’s decision to fund Biobank, a £45 million initiative to collect DNA samples and medical records from 500,000 volunteers aged between 45 and 69. The scheme aims to investigate the balance between genetic and environmental causes of conditions such as cancer and heart disease, but many experts have questioned its real value.
“Projects like Biobank are speculative in terms of what they might deliver for human health, and are certainly not well understood by the public,” Dr Gibson said. “The MRC is playing wild cards at a time when we need to consolidate our medical research.”
“It is not clear to us that Biobank was peer-reviewed and funded on the same basis as any other grant proposal,” the report found. “Our impression is that a scientific case for Biobank had been put together by the funders to support a politically driven project.”
While Biobank was backed, however, there has been a significant drop in the money available for new grants for other research: that fell from £209 million in 1999-2000 to £106 million and £59 million in the following years. The sums available from year to year fluctuated too wildly. Financial mismanagement meant that studies of second-rank quality had been supported one year, only for more important research to be rejected the next.
“Research funders all risk unpopularity among those researchers whose applications are not successful . . . but the recent success rate for the MRC’s grant applications has fallen to levels that are not acceptable,” the report said. The research community’s anger was understandable and justified. Research into neuroscience was one of the main fields that had lost, Dr Gibson said. “At a time when the Government is highlighting mental health as one of its major initiatives, withdrawal of funds in that area threatens to put us in the third league.”
Many scientists have had to focus on charity rather than public funding for their work. “Our major endeavours in cancer have come from large amounts of charity money, not from government support,” Dr Gibson said. “Something has gone badly wrong at the MRC, which has left Britain’s best medical research groups starved of funds. The committee found that there are serious questions about the way the MRC has operated over the last few years, and demands a response from the Government to protect taxpayers.”
The council is funded entirely by the Office of Science and Technology, a division of the Department of Trade and Industry. Its funding priorities are set by its 14-strong council, which is appointed by the Government and chaired by Professor Sir George Radda. Its members are all leading scientists, including Mac Armstrong, the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, and Nancy Rothwell, Professor of Biological Sciences at Manchester University.
The council said last night that it was deeply disappointed by the committee’s report, which did not adequately recognise that the council’s mission was to promote medical research with a view to improving human health. “This involves planning long-term and funding research on a long-term basis and we consider that this approach is in the national interest.”
The council also strongly objected to the committee's suggestion that UK Biobank was a “politically driven project”.
How MRC works
Annual budget: £416 million (2001-02)
Chairman: Professor Sir George Radda
Council members: 14
Appointment and funding: from Office of Science and Technology, part of DTI
Organisation: four research boards and other sub-committees advise on priorities in particular fields
Grants awarded to: scientists working in universities, the NHS or MRC research centres
Major research achievements: discovery of gene for Huntington’s disease; combination drug therapy for Aids; first genetic map of an animal
Research centres: more than 50, with 3,000 staff Postgraduates: about 1,200 every year supported by MRC
Scientific results: about 4,000 publications in scientific journals every year are supported by MRC grants
