Annual report : 2013 / Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

  • Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Date:
2013
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Annual report : 2013 / Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Burroughs Wellcome Fund Biomedical research is usually an incremental endeavor. The result of one experiment may be a small but critical part of a thread that ultimately leads to a resolution of a more complex problem. The inability to predict which experiments will set the trajectory to a major discovery or even a Cure presents a unique challenge to funding organizations as we try to determine our investments. Rather than focus on the projects themselves, we choose to focus on the individuals we deem the most promising, giving them the chance to make critical, incremental, and sometimes major insights in understanding. We know that it is difficult to anticipate all the necessary discoveries and approaches or to guarantee a precise timeline for success. By providing flexible funding to talented and motivated individuals, we enable the risk-taking often needed to advance research and understanding. The Burroughs Wellcome Fund was able to fund superb science and education activities this year thanks to wise investments and a robust stock market. Our financial status is now sufficiently strong that we have been able to add new programs, and we are also planning to provide additional support for ongoing activities. We welcomed inaugural awardee classes to our Innovation in the Regulatory Science Awards and the Postdoctoral Enrichment Program for Underrepresented Minorities. We are pleased that we are able to provide stable and increased funding at this time of uncertainty for government support of biomedical research. Although we fund individual researchers, we recognize that interdisciplinary, collaborative interactions make important contributions to advance understanding of complex problems. Many of the big questions left in science now exist beyond the traditional disciplinary borders. To help address these questions, we are encouraging collaboration through activities such as our annual networking meeting, travel grants that introduce investigators to new techniques, the population and laboratory based sciences program, and our interfaces career awards. We want different approaches and perspectives to be brought to bear on problems that are often too difficult for one individual or discipline to solve. individuals, we enable the risk-taking often needed to advance research and understanding.” » 6. sd The Promise of Discovery ® :
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