Charity research collaborations
Pancreatic Cancer UK, Cancer Research UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council are partnering to host a series of workshops. Epilepsy Research UK and Young Epilepsy have joined forces to fund a Fellowship Award. Action on Hearing Loss and Medicines Discovery Catapult have launched the Hearing Medicines Discovery Syndicate.

Getting to grips with the Cabinet reshuffle
The much-anticipated Cabinet reshuffle took place last week with major changes of relevance to research. Chris Skidmore MP (Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation) was sacked and the role has now split higher education from science for the first time since 2010. 

New points-based immigration system policy paper
This week, Home Secretary Priti Patel published a policy paper on the Government’s new points-based immigration system. It includes recent announcements such as the Global Talent Visa for scientists. The new system will treat EU and non-EU citizens equally, but will give top priority to those with the highest skills, including scientists, engineers and academics.

Government Budget confirmed for 11 March
Following Sajid Javid MP’s resignation and the appointment of new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak MP, the Government’s Budget announcement has been confirmed as remaining 11 March.  AMRC has submitted a budget representation to HM Treasury outlining the sector’s key asks.

UKRI launches consultation on Open Access policy
UK Research and Innovation has launched a consultation as part of its Open Access Review. The consultation will inform the development of a new open access policy, aimed at ensuring that the published outputs of research are widely and freely accessible to all. The consultation will close on 17 April and the UKRI will use responses to inform its final policy, which it intends to announce in 2020.

Science 'held back by a gender gap'
On International Day of Women and Girls in Science last week, the UN Secretary-General called for more empowerment for women and girls. At present, less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women. Long-standing biases and gender stereotypes are steering girls and women away from science related fields. The Secretary-General said that "dismantling gender stereotypes" was an essential step to ending the gender imbalance in science.

£20 million pledged to fund vaccines for infectious diseases
The Government has pledged £20 million to develop new vaccines to combat the world’s deadliest diseases, amid concerns over the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak in China. It will go to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations – an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics.

Telling the sector's full story
Last year AMRC mapped out charity sector contributions to the UK life sciences and sought to determine how well they are understood by key partners and stakeholders.  Whilst some contributions were well understood, others were not. We’ll be working to address some of the gaps in understanding over the next year as we seek to share the sector’s full story in changing the research landscape.

Maximising the potential of human tissues
The UK Clinical Research Collaboration Tissue Directory is an online catalogue of over 200 human sample resources in the UK, which enables a free and efficient route for researchers to locate appropriate samples and data to match their research needs. UKCRC is now looking to encourage medical research charities to register their tissue banks and increase awareness of the Directory amongst researchers.

Equality, diversity and inclusion in research
If you’re a research manager/director, chief executive, policy professional or trustee keen to get to grips with what equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in research means for your organisation join our workshop on 24 March. The day will explore current progress on EDI within research, the benefits, building equality into research strategies, making grant applications more inclusive, and how to recruit diverse research committees.