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Do you know someone interested in supporting immunology research? The Immunology Network is working with the Medical Sciences Division Development Team to establish an Immunology Accelerator Fund that will be underpinned by philanthropic support.

Do you know someone interested in supporting immunology research? The Immunology Network is working with the Medical Sciences Division Development Team to establish an Immunology Accelerator Fund that will be underpinned by philanthropic support. If you have contacts or networks who would be interested in potentially contributing to the Fund, we would love to hear from you! Please email sally.pelling-deeves@medsci.ox.ac.uk.

Background

The University of Oxford has huge strength in immune research, with over 160 leading research groups working on enhancing understanding and finding solutions. Oxford empowers leading researchers to drive forward tangible advances in understanding, treatment and working towards curing immune disorders and infectious diseases. Oxford’s team has the significant benefit of holding very close links to the NHS, via the Oxford University Hospitals, to ensure scientific discoveries can quickly benefit patient care and move through from ‘bench to bedside’.

Funding the research necessary to advance our understanding and treatments is difficult.  Funding is often tied to milestones, timeframes and prescribed outcomes, which limit the scope for creativity, innovation and new ideas.


Oxford’s Solution

The Immunology Accelerator will provide funding for key immune-related research and enable:

1: Provision of small grants to pump-prime new projects and innovative ideas, for proof of concept.

2: Larger investments to scale-up promising and innovative research projects immediately, without having to rely on traditional, often risk averse, research funding.

Led by Professor Paul Klenerman, a world-renowned researcher on the immunology of infectious diseases, and directed by a team of top academics, we will accelerate a programme of collaborative immune research aiming to improve understanding of the immunological response that causes disease, discover ‘treatable traits’ and identify specific pathways to target for treatments.

This flexible fund will support and accelerate invention and exciting new ideas. It will enable researchers to take risks, which are unlikely to be supported through traditional funding streams. As a hallmark of innovation, we do fully expect some ideas to fail but we anticipate the impact of this programme to be significant and for some of the research to bring truly ground-breaking results. 

The Role of Philanthropy

Oxford’s innovative research aims to harness philanthropic support from visionary and like-minded donors to bring more treatments that are effective to trial and then into patient care to make a significant contribution to improving outcomes for people with immune disorders globally.

Philanthropy is a proven way to deliver fast and responsive change. The impressive results from Oxford’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of a vaccine was driven directly by a concentrated input of philanthropic support at the start of the pandemic. Quick decisions made by motivated philanthropists drove progress in advance of traditional research and government funding.

We seek like-minded philanthropic donors with the vision to draw on Oxford’s unique strengths in medical research and immunological science to deliver a step-change in immunology research.

Contact

Sally Pelling-Deeves, Immunology Research Facilitator, University of Oxford

E: sally.pelling-deeves@medsci.ox.ac.uk

The indispensable contribution that philanthropic support makes at Oxford is recognized in many ways. From membership of the Vice Chancellor’s Circle and Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors, to invitations to national sporting events, formal dinners and meetings with our leaders and senior academics. Additionally, should a backer wish to endow a key post or make a significant long-term gift, naming opportunities can be also explored.