Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13 billion, it is the United Kingdom’s largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research. The overall mission of the trust is “to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health”, and in addition to funding biomedical research it supports the public understanding of science.
The Trust was established to administer funds from the estate of the American-born pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome. In 1986, the trust sold 25% of Wellcome plc stock to the public, beginning a process of separating itself from the pharmaceutical industry. In 1995, the trust divested itself of any interest in pharmaceuticals by selling all remaining stock to Glaxo plc, creating GlaxoWellcome plc: the funds coming from this merger has shaped the Trust’s subsequent philanthropic activities.
The Trust focuses its funding on three key areas of activity: supporting outstanding researchers; accelerating the application of research; and exploring medicine in historical and cultural contexts. In its strategic plan 2010-2020, the Trust identified five major challenges – (1) maximising the health benefits of genetics and genomics; (2)understanding the brain; (3) combating infectious disease; (4) investigating development, ageing and chronic disease; (5) connecting environment, nutrition and health.
The Wellcome Trust spends around £600 million per annum supporting biomedical research. Much of this goes to support research that adds to our understanding of health and disease and a significant proportion is also invested in technology transfer so that innovations are translated into new health products.
Funds from the Wellcome Trust have supported several major initiatives in recent years, including the sequencing of the human genome at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the development of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin, and establishing the UK Biobank. In addition, the Wellcome Trust funds a programme carrying out vital research on malaria and other diseases that cause high levels of mortality in Kenya, Malawi, Thailand and Laos, Vietnam and South Africa.
The Wellcome Trust encourages the publication of research in open access repositories such as UK PubMed Central (UKPMC). The Wellcome Trust believes that the distribution of these papers in part through the provision of free, online access establishes the most effective way of ensuring that the research can be accessed, read and built upon, so fostering a richer research culture.
In June 2007 the Wellcome Building reopened after refurbishment as a public venue, housing the Wellcome Collection. The aim of the Wellcome Collection is to enhance public engagement with, and understanding of, medical science and history. The building contains gallery spaces, conference facilities, space for debates, drama and workshops, a café and a bookshop. The galleries show a small sample of works from Sir Henry Wellcome’s collection, and host a programme of events and exhibitions. The Wellcome Collection and exhibitions are open to the public free of charge six days a week.
The Wellcome Trust was one of 14 organisations with a direct stake in effective scholarly communications to endorse Research and the Scholarly communications process: Towards strategic goals for public policy, the statement of principles document RIN published in 2007, which the Policy Centre is supporting.