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Originally Posted by kerriffic
I would be interested to know from the other CP'ers on here that appear to be more directly involved to know just how much filters down directly to the researcher looking for the cure. One of the posters above alluded to "starving". I was involved in medical research in Halifax in 2004 (diabetes related) and we were constantly almost begging for handouts to continue research.
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There's generally two sources of research funding for this kind of research: government grants (CIHR, NSERC, NIH in the US) and fundraising society grants (Heart & Stroke, Cancer charities, MS society, yadda yadda). To get the grants, you have to put in an application where it's vetted and assigned a score - top scoring grants get funded, lesser don't. That being said, government grants, even top scoring grants often don't get funded. I don't have a lot of experience with charity grants since I've never worked on things that earn charity funding (no one cares about infectious diseases until you catch them!) but generally one writes a grant requesting the amount of money you'll need to do your work (salaries, reagents, equipment). Whether you get that or not is different.
I suppose the take-home message is that lower % of donations going to research means less grants available, rather than less $.
I know I feel like there's more pressure when you're spending charity money - people worked hard to earn that money for us compared to government grants. That being said, if you don't produce, you don't get your grants renewed so the pressure is huge either way.
No kidding! Salaries are pitiful but everything else is disgracefully expensive.