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10 December 1996 National Lottery Charities Board announces Research GrantsThe National Lottery Charities Board today awarded 56 grants totalling £8.6 million to medical and social research charities working in the fields of health, disability and care. Forty three grants worth £6.7 million were for medical research and 13 grants worth £1.9 million were for social research. The grants will fund research into a wide range of medical conditions including asthma, cancer, liver disease, lung disease, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, blindness and eye disease, deafness, stroke and head injury, childhood meningitis and diabetes. The social research projects to be funded include work using virtual reality technology to teach practical daily living skills to children and young people with learning difficulties; research into the experiences and needs of young Asian and Afro-Caribbean people with sickle-cell disorder; projects working with people with mental health problems and elderly people; work to help disadvantaged families have access to better diets and work to support families with severely disabled children.The organisations receiving grants include Cancer Research Campaign, Children's Liver Disease Foundation, National Heart Research Fund, British Lung Foundation, Tenovus, The British Diabetic Association, The Mental Health Foundation, The Family Fund Trust and Research into Ageing. The work will be undertaken at a number of research centres including Great Ormond Street Hospital, the University of Aberdeen, the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, King's College Hospital, London, and Universities of Birmingham, Bristol and Oxford and the University of Wales, Cardiff. The largest grant announced today was £542,772 to the Mental Health Foundation, for a major research project to document and disseminate information from mental health service users about alternative ways to live with mental illness. The smallest grant announced was £26,891 to the Rehabilitation and Medical Research Trust (REMEDI), to investigate what contributes to the development of pressure sores in people who use wheelchairs. David Sieff, Chairman of the National Lottery Charities Board, said: “I am delighted to announce grants to these excellent medical and social research projects which, over time, will have practical benefits for some of the most vulnerable people in society; people with illnesses and those with disabilities. “In the fields of health, disability and care, improvements in services and understanding often result from high quality research. These grants recognise the important contribution made by medical and social research charities in funding research into a wide range of diseases and conditions, and the evaluation of new forms of services and provisions. They also recognise the commitment of the scientific community and the charity sector that supports it. We look forward to the successful implementation of these projects to help improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people.” The Board's overall aim is to helpmeet the needs of those at greatest disadvantage in society and to improve the quality of life in the community. Under the Health, disability and care grants programme the Board is giving grants to help tackle the underlying social or other causes of poor health as well as those which promote good health and care and those which empower people with disabilities. For further information contact Paul Hensby or Ruth Walker on: 0171 7475200 (0385 342667 out of hours). Notes to Editors:
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