In UK, new partnership, not money

Written byAndrea Gawrylewski

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Five British hospitals and medical research centers are joining forces to link basic research and healthcare more closely, the University College London (UCL) announced last week. The Guardian linkurl:reported;http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/07/health.highereducation?gusrc=rss&feed=politics last Thursday that the four centers "disclosed plans for a 2 billion [pound] business partnership to create the largest biomedical research organization in Europe," suggesting that new hefty funding is being allocated to the project. But the new partnership, which will be called UCL Partners and support 3,500 scientists and clinicians across the UK, is receiving no new money, Neil Goodwin, UCL Partners project director, told The Scientist. Rather, the five institutions together account for nearly $3.8 billion (approximately 2 billion pounds) in annual funding and revenue. By pooling these resources and researchers at each center, Goodwin added, the hope is to better translate scientific findings into healthcare approaches. Governance under a bigger umbrella will not create more roadblocks for researchers, he said. "There are no plans to change the way organizations operate. They will remain as they are, governance is not going to merge. The intention is to keep additional bureaucracy to a minimum." Goodwin also said that there are no foreseeable changes in which centers get what money. Mostly, the partnership is about creating a global force in biomedical research.

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