Almost £1million of research grants that will play a key role in saving lives and improving treatments for patients have been awarded by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, it has been revealed.
Funding the next generation of surgical researchers is seen as one of the most important investments the College - Britain’s oldest surgical Royal College - makes each year and scores of projects from a cross-section of medical and surgical disciplines have been supported.
The grants range from bursaries to junior medics to major Fellowship Awards involving some of the country’s leading medical researchers and institutions. The College is one of the largest dedicated funders of surgical research and education in the UK.
Professor Stephen Wigmore, Chair of the RCSEd Research Committee, said supporting research and innovation in surgery is one of the core activities that the College provides to its membership.
He said: “Supporting high quality surgical research is essential if we are to make progress in our quest to provide better treatment for our patients.
“We are committed to delivering results that will, ultimately, improve and save lives.
The College’s Research Report 2016-2018 revealed that grants of £996,164 had been awarded by the Research and Grants Committee. It details the diverse range of grants into research in areas such as cancer, orthopaedic surgery and urology, as well as ongoing of successful partnerships with Royal Blind, which is leading to innovations in ophthalmological care.
The College has been growing its research partnerships at a steady rate with some of the UK’s leading medical research charities. It hopes to launch its first Research Chair in Colorectal Cancer Surgery in the next two years, which will be a first for the College and Scotland.
Past-President Michael Lavelle-Jones, whose period of office covered the report, added: “The future of our research programme is exciting. Partnership working is allowing us to undertake more ambitious work that will have a national impact in the longer term.
“We are looking to work with major medical research charities to grow surgical research from the periphery and place it at the heart of medical research agendas nationwide.
“This innovative approach to working together is in all our interests and will leave a lasting legacy of treatments that will transform lives.”
The College has a strategy to embed research as a key part of surgical training, believing it is not an abstract exercise but a core part of making surgeons more curious and engaged with the medical conditions they are trying to treat.
The College plays a vital part in encouraging surgeons in training to see the value of research and in enabling them to develop their clinical research skills by providing the necessary funding.
Professor Wigmore added that the College is deeply indebted to the many partners, trusts and individuals who generously donate to the crucial area of medical research, without which this work would not be possible.
To learn more about how to support the work of the College, please contact the Development and Partnerships Office on 0131 527 1591 or email: development@rcsed.ac.uk.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh – which can trace its roots back to the 1st of July 1505 – is a modern, thriving, global network of medical professionals with memberships approaching 25,000 professionals who live and work in more than 100 countries around the world. 15,000 of these live and work in the UK and 80% of that figure are based in England and Wales.