Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has been awarded just over £3 million from Research England’s Specialist Institutions Fund, which has been set up to provide funding to institutions that may have seen a loss of charity funding because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
LSTM’s award is a share of the Fund’s £10 million, which has been reallocated from the £80 million Specialist Institution Fund launched by the Chancellor in the spring 2020 budget. Other recipients from the Fund are the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Institute of Cancer Research, London.
LSTM’s Director, Professor David Lalloo, said: “At LSTM we have found ourselves working extremely hard to adapt to the current changes that COVID has made necessary. While maintaining our research into the diseases that have a massive impact on people in some of the world’s poorest populations, we have undertaken work which leverages our expertise in infectious diseases to make a difference in the current pandemic, working across COVID testing, therapeutics, and vaccine development. This money from Research England will help us to maintain our work, when other forms of LSTM’s income have been affected by the pandemic.”
Executive Chair of Research England, David Sweeney, said: “These institutions undertake vital research into diseases of global importance, including cancer, COVID-19 and tropical diseases that must continue to be supported to save lives around the world."
“Given the importance of these institutions in tackling research agendas, we have reallocated this funding to ensure these operations are not unduly jeopardized by a reduction in charity funding.”
Research England, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), set up the Fund to ensure that specialist institutions who receive more that 10% of their total income from eligible charity funding could continue their work.