Providing the right environment for research

Laptop in labIt is essential that we provide the right environment to stimulate world-class research. Cancer Research UK currently supports over 4,500 scientists, doctors and nurses throughout the UK through a variety of funding mechanisms. 

We fund research carried out in our own research institutes, as well as awarding grants to researchers based in universities and hospitals.

We are establishing Cancer Research UK Centres across the country, which are key to us in delivering this theme of the research strategy.

Our Centres and Institutes will provide researchers with:

  • Space for innovation.
  • Access to the right facilities and people.
  • The knowledge that their funding is for a sufficient length of time to allow them to address the big questions.
  • The opportunity to bring lab advances to patients as quickly as possible.

Our Centres are one of our highest strategic priorities. They are virtual hubs, working on a local level with other charities, universities, cancer networks and NHS trusts. 

The Centres will facilitate team work between patients and professionals, fundraisers and researchers. Each Centre has its own research strategy, specialising in their strengths to foster progress in particular areas to ensure that scientific discoveries benefit patients as quickly as possible.

We currently have five Institutes where we carry out vital work in our fight against cancer. We are also a founding partner of the new Francis Crick Institute, due to open in the 2015. 

This ambitious project will deliver a global centre of world-class research, based at the heart of London. It is a bold partnership between Cancer Research UK and five of the world's other leading research organisations - the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, University College London, Imperial College London and King's College London. 

It will encourage ground-breaking research across a range of scientific disciplines and will help make sure that laboratory discoveries are turned into treatments as quickly as possible. By working together we have the best chance of understanding how to tackle the biggest health threats facing us today. The Francis Crick Institute's approach to beating cancer and other major diseases will be unique because of this exciting partnership.