Funding research through directed programmes: AIDS and the human genome project in the UK

Abstract

The 1980s and 1990s have seen directed and targeted research emerge as a pervasive feature of UK science policy, which is marked increasingly by ‘steady state’ budgets, commercialisation of research and increasing emphasis on public-sector accountability. This paper compares two targeted initiatives established in this period of change: the UK Medical Research Council's AIDS Directed Programme and its Human Genome Mapping Project, focusing on their launch, evolution and termination. It is argued that there was a conflict between the broad ‘mission goals’ needed to mobilise resources, and the more limited ‘pragmatic goals’ set for medium-term research-created problems both for managing the programmes and measuring their success. The ‘directed programme’ philosophy has survived the termination of the programmes through incorporation of several elements of each initiative into the Council's on-going research management strategy. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.