Medical research charities are committed to funding research that positively impacts people living with health conditions or diseases. For many charities, this is only made possible through public donations and so charities must let the public know how their money is being spent and what impact it is having.
The pathway to impact is rarely linear. Instead, it often involves many different funders and research teams over a long period of time. This cumulative nature of impact makes it challenging to track in an effective way.
AMRC is helping a number of our members use an online tool called Researchfish that allows them to collect data on the outcomes of their research funding over time. Collecting data in this consistent way allows us to pool data together from many different charities and perform an in-depth cross-sector analysis of the outcomes of the research funded by our members.
This report follows on from our initial 2017 impact report, incorporating two more years of data and new stories of how charity-funded research has impacted patients and society. The report is structured around the five areas of impact shown below.
For a PDF version of this report please contact our Communications Officer, Leo.
If you have any questions please contact our Research, Data and Impact Manager, Jocelyn.
With thanks to the Medical Research Council, Researchfish, and participating charities.
The Researchfish system describes 14 outcome types outlined in the table below, which can be hard to navigate for a general user. By collating these into 5 areas aligned to the aims of research funding, it brings more structure and allows for the linking of the outputs of research to the research strategies of funders. As some funders will only support research that focuses on one or two aims and others on all five, it is important that each is considered on its own merits, and linked back to the funders research strategy.
We have used these five impact areas as a framework for analysis.
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