• Question: do fund for money for your lab (or if you have a science group)?

    Asked by iluvwilmas to Adam, Joanna, Louise S, Marcus on 21 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Louise Stanley

      Louise Stanley answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hi,

      My PhD was funded by the Wellcome Trust Scholarship which provided me with both my salary and money to carry out experiments. I now work in a lab for the NHS so the money comes from the government so all tax payers! So since I am a tax payer, I am kind of funding money for my lab!!!

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hi! It’s different for different people 🙂

      I decided to get my own money, because it means that I had the freedom to write my own project and do my very own experiments. So I decided to apply for the funding myself from the charity, Arthritis Research UK. I then asked a lab group that already existed if I could join them.

      So when I started my project, I joined a group that already existed, but I brought in my own money. The money is important for buying chemicals and equipment and paying my salary. In the future I would hope to apply for more money to get some students and then one day have my very own group – but it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to do this – so keep your fingers crossed for me 🙂

    • Photo: Marcus Wilson

      Marcus Wilson answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hi Im funded by Cancer Research UK, as is all my lab which makes everything very easy. They are generous with their funding so we can do some really good experiments, but only if they keep getting donations!

    • Photo: Adam Paige

      Adam Paige answered on 22 Nov 2012:

      My PhD was funded by the government’s Medical Research Council. I then worked for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (which is now called Cancer Research UK) and was funded by them. But after that I started to apply for my own funding to run my research group. I have held grants from charities like the Scottish Hospitals Endowment Research Trust, and Ovarian Cancer Action, from the drug company Astra Zeneca, and I was a co-investigator on a grant of a colleague of mine funded by the US Army!

      Finding money for science is extremely hard though. It takes a lot of time and effort and there is a lot of competition. And the amount of money you need to carry out good research is amazing. A typical (small) project grant for three years work is likely to be about £200,000. Larger programme grants of £1-2 million are very common.

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