Stem Cells: Research
(asked on 14th December 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much funding his Department has allocated for embryonic stem cell research to date; and what estimate he has made of the number of such funded research projects involving embryonic stem cells which have yielded results clearly beneficial to public health.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy sets the overall budgets of the independent research councils, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Innovate UK, which then allocate funds for individual grants and research organisations in line with the Haldane Principle
The research councils have allocated the following funds to projects which include research related to embryonic stem cells. Note that projects have been included where relevant based on the information provided at the time of application. As projects may be refined following submission it is likely that some projects in the portfolio ultimately did not use embryonic tissue. Values are given as the total spend on grants that involve research using stem cells, but it may be that only a proportion of the research undertaken on a grant involves stem cells. Further information on individual projects can be found on the RCUK Gateway to Research, see: http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
| 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 |
BBSRC | £3,000,000 | £4,300,000 | £4,100,000 | £4,000,000 | £3,800,000 | £4,200,000 |
EPSRC | £216,000 | £737,401 | £969,896 | £568,611 | £486,260 | £167,303 |
MRC | £7,639,000 | £6,886,000 | £6,190,000 | £5,642,000 | £6,128,000 | £5,711,000 |
TOTAL | £10,855,000 | £11,923.401 | £11,259,896 | £10,210,611 | £10,414,260 | £10,078,303 |
Innovate UK has funded a number of projects directly involving embryonic stem cell R&D since 2007.
FY commitment | Grant Committed |
2015/16 | £205,959 |
2013/14 | £93,687 |
2012/13 | £90,067 |
2011/12 | £119,937 |
2010/11 | £158,991 |
2007/08 | £53,537 |
Innovate UK has funded the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult to conduct embryonic stem cell research and latest updated figures show an investment of £700,000 across 2015/16 and 2016/17.
Research Councils and Innovate UK collect information on project outcomes, but these are not explicitly assessed in terms of benefits to public health