Annual report : 2000 / Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

  • Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Date:
2000
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Annual report : 2000 / Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/88 page 4
    REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT: NEW TERRAIN FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM By Enriqueta C. Bond, Ph.D. The year 2000 signaled a tuning point in the maturity of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. After a five-year period in which we had substantial growth in our award programs, due to the generous $400 million gift from the Wellcome Trust, our sister philanthropy in the United Kingdom, BWF has now reached a steady financial state. As we do every five years, we have been evaluating our programs in an exercise we call “terrain mapping.” Through this process, we look for new opportunities where our grantmaking can help boost the careers of promising young scientists and catalyze growth in particular areas of research. BWE recognizes This time, the exercise had an added dimension: in May 2000, BWF dedicated our permanent headquarters building in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. (See page 3.) With the completion of our new home, which includes several meeting spaces, we were able to include in our discussion research landscape Options for expanding BWF’s role as a convener of scientists, policy makers, and others involved in ; ; medical research and health-related issues. is changing. During the terrain-mapping exercise, BWF’s program staff performed a comprehensive analysis of our programs—all with an eye toward consolidation and innovation. We kept in mind the role that philanthropies play in funding biomedical research. While government support for medical research in 1999 was roughly $18 billion and industry support was more than $23 billion, private philanthropies provided about $1.3 billion. While modest in comparison, private funding often is more flexible and responsive to a changing research environment. Private foundations can be catalysts for change, and they can provide essential “risk capital” for new ideas and new models. BWF, which ranks among the top six health research foundations in the United States and Canada, provided nearly $39 million for biomedical research and science education in 2000. Our funding levels by program area are shown in the chart below. The funding levels provided by the leading health/medical research foundations are shown in the table on page 5. that the biomedical Reproductive Science Career Development of Scientists $1.4 million / 3.5 percent $12.8 million / 33 percent Interfaces in Science Science Education $3 million / 8 percent $3.1 million / 8 percent Infectious Diseases Re Environment for Science $8 million / 20.5 percent \ : $0.4 million / 1 percent Therapeutic Sciences $10.1 million / 26 percent (For details, see “Grants Index/Program Summary” on page 30)
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