Published: June 2023

This briefing provides an in-depth discussion of research expenditure by our member charities in 2022. You can also access a breakdown of the spending of our member charities in our Member Dashboard and you can find previous published briefings in our Reports archive.

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Data notes:

Charity Funding is an essential component of UK medical research 

• Data for the previous financial year is provided to AMRC by members during an annual data collection exercise and is categorized into 4 domains: research in the UK; overseas research; capital projects (including building and equipment over £50K); other charitable activities (e.g. welfare, support, care and information). 
• MRC and NIHR UK research spend from 2021-22 annual reports, excluding official development assistance (ODA). Spending on research by health departments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland not illustrated. 

Research expenditure if recovering post-pandemic, but hasn’t got there yet 

• Graph plotted using historical data submitted by AMRC member charities. Both predicted values were worked out by using the average change seen between each year from 2012 to 2019, and then adding this average value to the expenditure reported in 2019. 

The current climate is affecting charities and the research they fund 

• All figures calculated from survey responses from AMRC member charities. 
• Questions in which the figures are taken from are:
  • Is the current situation having/or expected to have an impact on your donations/fundraising activities?
  • In April 2021, AMRC estimated it would take over 3 years for charity spend on research in UK to return to pre-pandemic levels. Taking into account the current situation, how long from now (January 2023) do you estimate it will take before your organisation’s spend on research in the UK can fully recover to normal, pre-pandemic levels or achieve levels of growth forecasted pre-pandemic? 
  • Has your organisation seen any impact on research caused by the current environment?