The past few months have seen a number of new announcements made concerning funding for stem cell research in the UK and internationally. In March the Department of Trade and Industry announced the allocation of £1billion of funding to the life science and biotechnology sector. This allocation is from the £10billion science budget agreed in the 2004 Spending Review. It furthers the Government’s commitment to science and innovation that was initially outlined in the ten-year investment framework. The new allocation specifically covered areas such as stem cell research and bio-processing. Some of the additional funding will increase the budgets of the MRC and BBSRC, as well as assist UK universities collaborate with business and create new companies to exploit their research.
The EU has also allocated €12billion to a pan-European stem cell research collaboration involving groups in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and Finland, which will investigate the therapeutic potential of human embryonic stem cells. However, some of the home nations of the scientists involved, such as Italy and Germany, have restrictive national legislation governing this type of research. This may lead to their representatives within the EU seeking to delay the project, or to remove their scientists from it completely. The confusion over the future of the project follows the recent decision by the European Parliament to change legislation governing the funding of embryonic stem cell research (see earlier story). This change proposes that embryonic stem cell research should be funded from the national budgets of member states where the research is legal and not by the EU. However the resolution has not been adopted by the European Commission and is not specifically mentioned in its recent announcement of the 7th Research Framework Programme.