Wellcome announces $22B funding strategy

Wellcome grew its investment portfolio to £38.2 billion ($52 billion) — an increase of more than a third — in the fiscal year to September 2021. As a result, Wellcome has announced plans to spend £16 billion over the next decade — an increase of more than 50% on recent spending levels. According to accounts filed this week, this is the U.K.-based trust’s most successful year since 1995. It caps a decade in which its portfolio roughly tripled in real terms. Wellcome, one of the largest nonprofit funders in the world, mainly supports scientific research and health causes. Its new funding strategy focuses on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious diseases, and the health impacts of climate change. It is also supporting “a broad programme of discovery research,” which is intended to give researchers the freedom to search for new knowledge. In addition to the £16 billion over 10 years, it will set aside an additional £750 million to fund other large-scale, high-impact activities, with an expectation that this figure will rise to £1 billion next year. “This gives us a huge opportunity to increase our support for scientific research that will make a real difference to people everywhere in the years to come,” said Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, in a statement accompanying the report. The organization has also increased its global policy and advocacy capacity, including expanding its European office in Berlin. And Wellcome has also committed to changing its investment portfolio to become a “net zero” investor by 2050. Wellcome spent £1.23 billion on charitable activities in the year, out of a total spend of £1.37 billion. Update Jan. 28, 2022: This article was amended to clarify that Wellcome is one of the largest nonprofit funders in the world.