£6m boost for heart research led by Professor Hugh Watkins

Research into heart disease, led by Exeter’s Professorial Fellow in Medicine, Professor Hugh Watkins, has received a £6m boost from the British Heart Foundation. The charity has given the money to the University of Oxford’s British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, based at the John Radcliff Hospital.

Significantly the money is not ring-fenced to a particular experiment, which means the research can be apportioned to the area of greatest need and new channels of research can receive funding straight away.

Professor Hugh Watkins, the centre’s director, said: “This money is fundamentally important because of its flexibility. It is only a few per cent of the total funding we need each year, but its value is far, far greater than that because it does allow us to chase down those exciting opportunities at the moment they arise. If you want to look at a new idea or test some new exciting hypothesis, you always need some evidence that it is a successful idea before you can get large amounts of funding for research.”

You can read more about this research grant on the Oxford Times website.