NEURO NEWS
Call For Neuro Funding
10 March 2025
For 2025 Brain Awareness Week (10-16 March) we are joining the Neurological Alliances of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to raise awareness of the critical need for more research on neurological conditions, and calling on the UK government to #InvestInNeuroResearch.
We have signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, endorsed by the four UK Alliances and 74 member organisations, calling for greater investment into research on neurological conditions. With the UK government’s current plans for research expansion, we believe neurological conditions should be a priority in these developments.
A shocking study published in The Lancet Neurology shows that neurological conditions are now the leading cause of ill health worldwide, affecting 43% of the world's population.
Conditions such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, dementia, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease are just some of the 600+ neurological conditions that impact millions of people across the UK. Around one in six people in the UK have at least one neurological condition, with an estimated 600,000 people diagnosed each year.
Despite this widespread impact, there is severely limited funding for research on these life-altering conditions. The latest figures show that neurological research received just 8.9% of the UK’s total health research expenditure (2022).
Researchers working on transformative projects face losing their jobs due to insecure funding, clinical trials are limited in their number, and short funding cycles make sustained research challenging. This leaves countless people feeling lost, with little known about what causes their condition or what possible treatments, interventions or methods for managing their condition might be available.
This has to change.
Speaking on behalf of the UK Alliances, Hester Lee, Programme Co-ordinator of the Neurological Alliance of Scotland said:
“Neurological conditions can affect anyone, at any age, and at any time, yet there is still such a limited understanding of how these conditions impact people. This directly affects the availability and quality of treatment, care and support people with neurological conditions receive.
"To raise awareness of the critical need for more research into neurological conditions, we are sharing videos throughout Brain Awareness Week from people who live with neurological conditions, people who participate in research studies, and researchers from across the UK who work in neurological research. We are doing this to demonstrate the huge and often unrealised potential of research to transform lives, and to call on the UK government to prioritise investment into neurological condition research in their new research initiatives."
We hope that you will join us throughout the week to raise awareness about the critical need for more research on neurological conditions by using the hashtag #InvestInNeuroResearch and following the campaign on our social media channels.