About our research

Asthma UK is a major funder of asthma research in the UK. We are committed to our vision of: ‘control over asthma today, freedom from asthma tomorrow’, and we believe that research is vital if we are to see this vision realised.

To date we have spent over £50 million on basic, translational and clinical research.

Our research programme currently includes around 40 projects, two fellowships, five studentships and two professorships.

Thanks to support from Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited* (MSD UK), from 2009 we have also been able to offer funding for UK based healthcare professionals to attend the prestigious European Respiratory Society Annual Congress.

We believe that our role is to make the best use of our available funds by:

• Funding groundbreaking research
• Acting as a catalyst for speculative and innovative research projects
• Influencing the strategy and priority areas of other funders
• Communicating and promoting the experiences and priorities of people with asthma
• Building capacity in asthma and respiratory medicine by providing ‘seed’ funding which researchers can use to develop larger research studies suitable for funding by other agencies
• Promoting and facilitating careers in asthma research by supporting students and fellows.

As well as committing to fund the best research applications submitted to Asthma UK, we also aim to proactively develop innovative research projects to break new ground, and we are undertaking a one-off research project into the experiences and needs of people with difficult-to-control asthma.