Brain: Tumours

Government responsibility for delivering brain cancer research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.

We are committed to furthering our investment in brain cancer research and have already taken steps to stimulate scientific progress and build scientific capacity to do research on brain cancer.

As announced in the National Cancer Plan, investment in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, co-funding of the Cancer Research UK Brain Tumour Centres of Excellence, and other direct programmatic spend through NIHR funding streams totals a combined investment of £32.3 million since July 2024, and a total of £45.2 million since 2018, all of which is designed to accelerate brain cancer research. In addition, the NIHR’s wider investments in research infrastructure, including research centres, which run studies, facilities and services, and the research workforce, leverages research funding from other donors and organisations. These NIHR investments in infrastructure are estimated to be £44.5 million over the period 2018/19 to 2024/25, enabling 298 brain tumour research studies to take place.

As part of this funding, the NIHR announced increased investment of over £25 million in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium. The world-leading consortium aims to transform outcomes for adults and children and their families who are living with brain tumours, ultimately reducing lives lost to cancer. Progress will be monitored through approved NIHR contract management processes over the period of the award contracts, which range from five to 10 years.

We continue to support researchers to develop and submit applications to the most appropriate programmes. The NIHR Research Support Service provides free, expert advice and support to applied health, public health, and social care researchers on the design and delivery of research and the development of research funding applications.

It is not the usual process of the NIHR to ringfence funds for research into specific conditions, although there have been times when we have responded to Government commitments to spend pre-specified amounts of money on research in particular areas.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including brain cancer. Our approach to funding research is through open and fair competition and peer review to ensure that the highest-quality proposals, most likely to deliver real impact for patients, are funded without imposing financial targets or limits.