WQ84726 (e) Tabled on 08/03/2022

How is the site-specific brain tumour research funding provided by Health and Care Research Wales allocated between the National Cancer Research Institute common scientific outline categories a) biology b) aetiology c) prevention d) early detection, diagnosis and prognosis e) treatment and f) cancer control, survivorship and outcomes research?

Answered by Minister for Health and Social Services | Answered on 15/03/2022

The Welsh Government, through Health and Care Research Wales, provides infrastructure to support and increase research. As a partner of the NCRI, Health and Care Research Wales contributes annually to the NCRI Cancer Research Database which classifies grants according to the Common Scientific Outline (CSO) categories.

NCRI CSO classification covers (a) biology, (b) aetiology, (c) prevention, (d) early detection, diagnosis and prognosis, (e) treatment and (f) outcomes research. In our most recent return covering the period 2020 - 2021, we reported two Health and Care Research Wales funded infrastructure grants (Wales Cancer Research Centre [WCRC] and the Brain Repair and Intracranial Neurotherapeutics [BRAIN] Unit) and one collaborative grant (CRUK Cardiff Experimental Cancer Research Centre [ECMC]) that included some brain tumour research activity.

An NCRI assessment across these three awards showed that the ECMC activities focus around (d) early detection, diagnosis and prognosis and (e) treatment, the WCRC covers (c) prevention and (d) early detection, diagnosis and prognosis and the BRAIN Unit covers (b) aetiology and (c) prevention.

However, due to the nature of these grant awards (e.g., infrastructure covering multiple cancer sites) we do not record data on the funding allocated to each disease site. More information on the CSO coding used by NCRI can be found here: Spend by Research & Disease Site - NCRI