CHARITABLE MEDICAL RESEARCH FOUNDATIONS; TOWARDS THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH FUNDING BODIES
Nuha Sahal Osailan*, Shatha Ibrahim Almogherbi, Ahmed Ali Alsharif, Abeer Abdulaziz Khayat and Safiah Abdulkarim Alenezi
ABSTRACT
Medical research funding is an essential factor in the development of
medical research field in Saudi Arabia. Governmental funding is the
almost the only source of support to researchers in universities and
research institutes. In developed countries, several sources of funding
represents a large percentage of the total research funds. Mainly,
charitable medical research foundations based on donation from the
public is a main source for funds for medical research. In this work, we
recognized the lack of such funding entities and investigated the main
pathway towards the establishment of alternative source of funding. A random sample of the
public were recruited and the results were informative. We found that the general
understanding of the public of the field of medical research was lacking. However, awareness
regarding the importance of medical research and willingness to participate in such initiative
was positive. The public did not have enough information on how to do so but re willing to
learn about it. A small percentage of the sample thought that public funding of medical
research is important. Additionally, information were lacking regarding the already
functioning medical research funding charities. It is recommended therefore to establish
regular public campaigns to raise awareness towards the funding of medical research. Using
the media and personal contact with the public was found to be the most important factors as
suggested by our results. Establishment of alternative medical research funding foundations is
important in support of governmental funding. We also propose that raising the awareness of
people can provide the cornerstone in this process. This can help improve the productivity of medical research in Saudi Arabia.
Keywords: Medical research funding medical research in Saudi Arabia.
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