Biomedical research Major investments The Trust funds or co-funds a number of major biomedical research initiatives: •
Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a cohort study of children born in England during 1991 and 1992. • The
Cancer Genome Project at the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. • The
Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron science facility in Oxfordshire. • Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science Initiative (DELTAS), a collaboration with the
Department for International Development (DFID) to establish cutting-edge research and training programmes across the African continent. • The
Ebola Emergency Initiative, a fast-tracked research programme with the goal of identifying clinical and public health interventions to counter the West African Ebola Epidemic. • The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation/ Wellcome Trust
Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory facilitates research into the genetic component of type 1 diabetes and is based in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. • The
Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative. • The
Structural Genomics Consortium, an international organisation focussing on three-dimensional structures of proteins of medical relevance with an emphasis on
open data. • The
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a
non-profit, British
genomics and
genetics research institute. •
UK Biobank.
Asia and Africa Programmes • The KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, established in 1989 in partnership with the
Kenya Medical Research Institute. • The Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, was established in 1995. • The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies in South Africa now known as AHRI
African Health Research Institute, established in 1998 in partnership with the
South African Medical Research Council. • The Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in partnership with the
Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, researching in Thailand and Laos and was established in 1979. • The Vietnam Research Programme and Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in
Ho Chi Minh City and
Hanoi.
Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative Also known as SDDI, this five-year initiative started in October 2005 with the remit "to facilitate the development of drug-like small molecules that address unmet medical needs." SDDI was based in London and managed by Richard Davis. Through early 2010, SDDI had provided more than £80 million across 30 projects split between academic institutions and companies.
Supporting global research and development in COVID-19 The Wellcome Trust announced the need for at least $8 billion of new funding for research, development, and supply of treatments related to COVID-19. Wellcome Trust collaborated with the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and
Mastercard to fund the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, launching in March 2020 with an initial $125 million in backing.
Improving research culture In September 2019, Wellcome launched an initiative to reimagine research and improve the culture in which research is conducted. Current incentive structures and, as a result, culture and practices, prioritise publication outputs above all else. This is damaging people's wellbeing and undermining the quality of research itself.
Support for open access and open data The Wellcome Trust plays an important role in encouraging publication of research in
open access repositories such as
Europe PubMed Central (EuropePMC). The Wellcome Trust believes that maximising the distribution of these papers – by providing free, online access – is the most effective way of ensuring that the research can be accessed, read and built upon. In turn, this will foster a richer research culture. In 2016, the Wellcome Trust partnered with the
US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute to launch the Open Science Prize to "help develop services, tools and platforms that enable open content to be discovered, assessed and re-used in ways that will advance discovery and spark innovation." an
open access publication system running on the
F1000 Research platform.
Article processing charges will be covered directly by Wellcome Trust. Papers from the system are now indexed in
PubMed Central.
Membership in the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT) In the summer of 2015, the Wellcome Trust joined the Japanese government, 7 Japanese pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the United Nations Development Program as funding partner of the
Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT), which funds scientific research and development for anti-infectives and diagnostics for diseases that primarily affect the developing world.
Public engagement and the Wellcome Collection In June 2007, the Wellcome Building reopened after refurbishment as a public venue, housing the
Wellcome Collection, the
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at
University College London and the
Wellcome Library. The aim of the Wellcome Collection is to enhance public 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 Collection and Wellcome Library are members of the
London Museums of Health & Medicine.
Wellcome Photography Prize The Wellcome Trust runs an annual photography prize which aims to explore "the human side of three urgent health challenges". Judges in 2021 include Dr Dixon Chabanda, Sir Jeremy Farrar, Dr Katerina Srahulkova and Azu Nwagbogu. Winners in each category receive a prize of £10,000.
Wellcome Book Prize The Wellcome Trust sponsors an annual book prize, the
Wellcome Book Prize, which "aims to excite public interest and encourage debate" around medicine and health.
Wellcome Global Monitor In June 2019, Wellcome released the results of the 2018 global survey on public attitudes toward science and health. Topics include trust of scientists, doctors, and nurses; religion and science, and vaccines, among others. It was Wellcome's first Global Monitor and was intended to "provide robust evidence on how public attitudes vary across different demographic groups and countries." == Investments ==