There are over 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK and this number is increasing. We will continue to support vital rehabilitation research, and focus on areas that people affected by stroke tell us are most important to them.
Our charity's purpose is to drive improvement in the lives of people affected by stroke. Our research can help at every stage of a stroke patient's journey, from finding out how to better identify stroke is happening and getting people the best emergency treatments, to preventing stroke survivors from having another life-shattering stroke. These are all important for people to live the best life they can and rebuild after stroke.
Funding that people give is not simply spent on interesting research or things that don't change patient care. It goes to things directly relevant to the care that people get and does make a difference.
Professor Chris Price is leading work to improve pre-hospital assessment for stroke, Newcastle University
You can read stories about our research making a a difference.
We fund research in areas that can bring the most benefit
Project grants where researchers set out to answer a specific question are our most popular research funding scheme. Highlight notices signal to researchers that funders are most interested in a certain area.
In 2019, we issued highlight notices on the topics of carers and fatigue after stroke. This encouraged researchers planning to look into these topics to apply for our funding. But how did we choose these topics?
While developing our Research Strategy 2019-2024, we asked people that had a stroke, those supporting them, and researchers and health and social care professionals where they think gaps in knowledge and support exist.
In many conversations and workshops, we gathered a long list of priority topics for research. From this list, we selected a shorter list of topics where we weren't already funding research.
We took the shorter list to a workshop at the UK Stroke Assembly. At the event, we discussed the topics with people affected by stroke to understand which areas had the most unmet need, and therefore where research can make the greatest difference. This is how we chose the topics of carers and fatigue for our highlight notices.