New research projects for 2023

02 February 2023

We are delighted to announce that £2.5 million of research funding has been awarded to projects aiming to change the lives of kidney patients and their families across the UK.

Lab image from previously funded research

Supporting innovation for the kidney disease community

Fourteen new projects have been funded following our grants programme in November 2022. We are thrilled to be supporting important new studies including research into the genetic factors that influence the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD), development of human kidney lab models for monitoring disease progression and screening possible new treatments, alongside a project to improve dialysis lines for children so that chances of infection are reduced. You can find details of our new projects on our website.

This sum of money is a notable increase on the amount usually awarded during our of our grants rounds, which is typically around £1.5m. The additional investment into these projects comes as result of collaboration with Kidney Wales and Kidney Research Yorkshire, and a very generous donation from the Thompson Family Charitable Trust.

Elaine Davies, director of research operations at Kidney Research UK commented: “Current research into kidney disease is really exciting, but in terms of new treatments and preventing disease progression not enough has changed for patients in many years. We are delighted to award such a vast sum of money to some very promising projects that we believe will help to transform the future of kidney disease care. Despite the ongoing challenge of the cost-of-living crisis, we remain fully committed to supporting life-changing research that can be translated into real-world benefits for kidney patients.”

What is a research grant?

Kidney Research UK grants are funds made available to scientists and healthcare professionals to answer or investigate a particular question, or to support their training within kidney research. This process usually occurs twice each year.

Researchers apply through a formal process, including expert scientific and patient review of their proposed projects. If a researcher is successful, they must keep Kidney Research UK updated on their progress and share their final results. We also offer additional advice and support to help researchers maximise the impact of their discoveries, including making future treatments available to patients or helping with further development of their projects.

Through the generosity of our supporters we are able to make projects like these happen.

Investing in the future of kidney medicine

For this grant round, we invited fellowship and studentship applications to give as many new researchers as possible the opportunity to start, or progress, their kidney research career. We also welcomed applications for research project and start-up awards to support researchers to progress new ideas and innovations designed to benefit kidney patients. Successful projects were carefully selected to ensure that all projects support our commitment to end kidney disease.

Dr Andrew Lewington, Kidney Research UK grants committee chairman noted: “Every year, we receive a many strong research applications that have real potential to shift the direction of research and transform patient care. This year, the proposals were particularly strong and of a very high quality. All fourteen projects that were funded will help us drive forward our long-term goals to prevent, detect and treat kidney disease. The full funding amount of £2.5m is an exceptional amount of money and will go a long way to help accelerate the charity’s ambition to one day eradicate this life changing disease.”