Research priorities

Importantly, where there is a really strong likelihood that we can achieve some worthwhile benefit, what we don't want to do is fund research just for the benefit of obtaining scientific information which is of interest to researchers.  We want to focus research on where we can make a difference. Now, some of that may be long term – we don't expect as a research funder that we’ll fund a piece of research today that’ll provide a new treatment for tomorrow, we have to lay the groundwork; the foundations with some perhaps basic research on which can be built the treatments of five or ten years ahead. But the key thing is that we want to focus our research where we know it is going to deliver, either in the short term or in the longer term.