Visitors voted at Imperial Festival on where research funding priorities should be allocated

Despite a large proportion of research funding coming from public funded sources, citizens who contribute towards this rarely get the opportunity to have a say on where this money should be spent. At Imperial Festival on 7-8th May, researchers from the HPRU HCAI & AMR set about to change this. 

Visitors were placed in the position of a large charitable organisation with a £100 million budget and six finalists from the theme of infection who were all applying for a piece of their funding. They were allowed to give the money to up to two of the six finalist. 

During the weekend, over 250 people voted for where they felt funding should be allocated. On both days Drug Resistant Infections was given the largest amount of funding, over emerging infections (such as zika), influenza, HIV/AIDs, TB, and malaria. The reasons for this will now be further explored during a patient and public workshop being held at Imperial College London later this month.