 |
| Volume 9, Number 9 | January 11, 2002 |
|
|
|
|
RUH Foundation steering more money into research...By Colleen MacPherson In deciding to direct more of its annual grants toward research, the Royal University Hospital (RUH) Foundation is, in some ways “returning to the original roots of the Foundation, which were to provide that edge of excellence, not to provide basic health care.” “Research is another tool to achieve the end result of better patient care,” according to Foundation Executive Director Adrienne Nolan. “We have traditionally funneled some money into research and education because our mandate has always included those two things, as well as equipment. Now, the (Foundation) board is no longer convinced that the greatest impact on patient care is through capital equipment.” Despite its stated objective to support research and education, about 90 per cent of the Foundation’s $7.8 million in grants over the past four years has been used to purchase capital equipment for the hospital, “with less than five per cent going to research, and even less than that to education.”
After consultation with both RUH and College of Medicine officials, the Foundation board decided to commit 25 per cent of yearly grants, or from $200,000-$250,000 annually, to research, a move that has made this “an exciting time for the Foundation. We’re not a major (research) funder nationally, but provincially I understand that’s a pretty respectable number.” RUH Foundation derives almost $2 million in annual revenue from private donations, major fundraisers like the Saskatoon Hospital Home Lottery and the annual Royal Ball, as well as from other sources. Of the money that has been earmarked for research this year, $100,000 will take the form of direct grants from what is called the Foundation Fund, explained Nolan. Those grants, which are capped at $25,000 per recipient, will be handed out by March 31. The remainder of the research money will go to what Nolan termed infrastructure funding – renovating laboratory space, lab equipment, technical staff, even computer systems – the missing pieces of the puzzle that allow research projects to proceed. The Foundation believes that “we maybe can be most impactful by providing this kind of research support as well as direct grants.” The Foundation has also pledged to fund a large portion of a post-doctoral fellowship position at RUH, a move that attracted three years of matching funds from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. This growing focus on research has strengthened the links between the Foundation and the College of Medicine, particularly since the College makes its standing review committee available to assess requests for Foundation grants. “The challenge with direct grants is that it’s very complex to review scientific applications,” said Nolan. “By working with the College’s review committee, we can rely on their expertise and standards of review. Our primary focus is fundraising and we don’t have the resources to establish our own elaborate peer review process.” The other challenge the Foundation faces is protecting what Nolan termed the “rights and interests” of donors. Having the final say in who receives Foundation grant money means “it’s important for us to be impartial, and it’s also very difficult for us to be impartial. I believe our working with the College balances out the individual biases of our board and among their committee members.” Nolan said she’s content with dividing the $100,000 in direct grants into four “but I’m open to having my mind changed through the consultative process. I’m not in favor of bending the current criteria because you have a particularly timely project. What I am open to though, is special circumstance funding, and I would want to see us do some of that every year. We have the money, we want to give it away but we want to be sure we’re making the best use of the research funding.”
| ||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||
 |
