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Areas covered by the medical research grants

From 2005 the Bupa Foundation will give medical research grants to work in two additional areas:

• mental health in older people: the prevention, treatment and palliative care of mental ill health in older people. It is envisaged that this work will focus on the dementias but work on depression, psychoses and any other relevant condition will also be welcome. Multi-disciplinary research is preferred and research teams do not have to be led by doctors. Bids should include an economic analysis and consideration of social and economic aspects of the work. Applicants must be based in the UK.
• health at work: the feasibility and potential value of the workplace for health promotion and active management of employee health. Occupational Health has tended to focus on health protection and preventive medicine; in this initiative the Foundation seeks to encourage the third part of primary prevention - the positive promotion of good health, by making people not only aware of what would be healthy behaviour but motivated to practise it. The Foundation hopes that economists, sociologists, behavioural scientists and health professionals with a broad range of skills will play a major part in the research it funds, with a view to estimating the value to employers specifically and the UK economy generally of making the workplace a health promotion resource. Applicants must be based in the UK.

The Bupa Foundation currently gives medical research grants to work in the following areas:

• surgery: projects ranging from development of surgical practices to evaluating outcomes and identifying/teaching new techniques
• preventive health: projects covering all health environments (including the workplace) from epidemiology to health maintenance
• information and communication: projects designed to enhance the partnership between medical professionals and the public/patients