With a team of leading professors in their field of vision research, Fight for Sight is launching the UK’s first Vision Research Network (UKVRN).
UKVRN will “bring brilliant minds together, connected by their determination to tackle the biggest challenges in vision research through innovation and collaboration” – said the charity.
The first step in building the network is a Doctoral Training Programme (DTP), which has opened this month. It will see students matched with co-supervisors from different institutions, and ideally different disciplines.
Eleanor Southwood, director of impact and external affairs at Fight for Sight, said: “In speaking with leading experts in the field, we were surprised to learn that many believed there were not enough opportunities for them to connect with peers and establish research collaborations.
“We aspire to change this by establishing the UK Vision Research Network, which will foster an environment which favours collaboration, bringing experts together to tackle some of the biggest challenges in vision research. In this first grant call, we will provide PhD students with opportunities to work across institutions and disciplines, equipping them with essential skills for collaborative research.”
Inspired by a need for collaboration, four leading experts in the field of vision research helped to develop the concept of UKVRN.
Professor Andrew Dick, director of the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL, said: “While competition is good, it shouldn’t be at the expense of being able to collaborate in an interdisciplinary manner and harness the greatness that we have in the UK.”
UKVRN and the inaugural doctoral programme will focus on retinal degeneration – a broad term that includes a range of conditions, from age-related macular degeneration to rarer conditions, including inherited retinal diseases.
Professor Marcela Votruba, professor of ophthalmology at Cardiff University and leading expert in hereditary retinal and optic nerve diseases, commented: “Currently, a lot of treatments are at a stage where they don’t have enough of a momentum to push them over the line because funding is very tight.”
This DTP is just the first step in this network; in the future UKVRN hopes to launch additional grants on other themes in the coming years.
Interested applicants can apply for up to £163,000 for London based host-organisations or £155,000 (elsewhere in the UK).
Applications can be completed through Fight for Sight’s website.
Images from stock.