Article: How philanthropy can nurture your research

"It takes money to do research and, increasingly, much of it comes from private donors and foundations, especially in the United States. Philanthropists provided 44% of research funding at US universities and non-profit research institutes in 2016, according to a 2018 post by the Science Philanthropy Alliance. This collective of philanthropists and foundations, which aims to build privately funded support for basic science in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, has grown from 6 members since it launched in 2013 to more than 30.

The money adds up. Overall, philanthropic groups in the United States contribute US$30 billion annually to science, similar to the amount spent by federal agencies, according to a 2022 analysis of US non-profit tax returns1. That’s more than in Europe, where a 2016 review2 of about 1,000 foundations estimated that philanthropies contributed more than $6.4 billion a year to research and innovation. That is only around 2% of the $353.6 billion total for the region, which was provided mostly by governments and industry. Many of these philanthropic grants are open to international researchers.

The landscape of philanthropic funding differs from publicly funded grants in key ways. Among them is the fact that there are many thousands of organizations each doling out relatively small amounts (see ‘Modest donations add up’)."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00077-2

 

I'm sceptical about the European percentage quoted, or at least how accurate it is for medical and health research specifically.

As I highlighted in my blog in 2019, "UK medical research charities spend a broadly similar amount to the taxpayer-funded National Institute for Health Research & Medical Research Council":

https://forums.phoenixrising.me/blo...ealth-research-medical-research-council.2591/

 

Updated figure:

https://www.amrc.org.uk/
This has “over 150 members”.
There are lots of charities which support research that are not members of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC).

 

The article linked from Nature* defines some important aspects of US philanthropy. There are significant social differences between the US and Europe which heavily impact on private and charitable foundation support for research, these are largely historical. The social upheavals in Europe in the last 80 years meant that philanthropic structures either had to be created anew or for a large chunk of Eastern Europe were actually suppressed. One might say the US developed an individualist approach supported by a sympathetic tax system, while Europe has developed a more Statist approach.

The UK is anomalous in that it has a highly developed charitable system with a long and uninterrupted history, yet which has developed a Statist feature in that tax allowances for philanthropy aren't awarded to the giver as in the US, but are given to the Charity as matching funding from the public purse.

The chart at * Philanthropy: A Critical Player in Supporting Scientific Research [Alliance blog] shows the split of University research funding - and while only 49% comes from Government the other 51% is split between just 8% direct giving, 6% from business and a massive 37% from "endowments". The endowment of Higher Education institutions, especially of an individual's Alma mater has a very long history that simply has not been replicated in Europe on the same scale.

Interestingly the 8% derived from direct giving at $4 billion in 2016, is a substantially smaller % of US GDP than the $6.4billion was of the smaller (roughly 3/4) European 2016 GDP. I think it's unlikely that the US model of finding science could be replicated in Europe - 150 years of endowments simply can't be matched. Also because of it's generous tax reward to recipient Institutions the UK is not a good comparator for the rest of Europe.

 

Interesting. Though it could also be the case that state funding of health research is lower in other European countries than in the UK so the ratios may not be different. For example, in (the Republic of) Ireland, the Health Research Board only has a budget of €45 million (£39.4 million), which is lower proportionally than the UK based on population (5 million in Ireland) but also proportionally to the size of the economy:

https://www.hrb.ie/about/who-we-are/hrb-key-facts/