Colin Blakemore - Medical Research Council

Medical Research Council

In 2003, Blakemore succeeded Professor Sir George Radda as the head of the Medical Research Council, a national organisation that supports medical science with an annual budget of more than £700 million. The reputation of the Medical Research Council had been damaged by what was perceived as financial mismanagement, the introduction of unpopular funding schemes and a lack of transparency in its dealings with researchers. Blakemore launched a national roadshow to consult the scientific community and quickly changed the mechanisms for handling funds, rationalised the grant schemes, introduced new forms of support for young researchers and overhauled the communications policies of the MRC.

He maintained his research activity in Oxford during his period of office and said "I want to be seen as the scientist, not the bureaucrat at the top. No, I want to be seen as the scientist in the middle."

Blakemore initiated a comprehensive review of the MRC's strategy and argued for a stronger commitment to clinical research and to the translation of basic research into benefits for patients. These actions anticipated Sir David Cooksey's 2006 "Review of UK health research funding", which resulted in closer working between the MRC and the Departments of Health, but which recommended that "funding levels for basic science should be sustained". In the Comprehensive Spending Review at the end of Blakemore's term of office, the budget of the MRC was increased by more than one third over three years.

On the completion of his appointment at the MRC in 2007, Blakemore returned to a Professorship of Neuroscience at Oxford. He also holds a Honorary Professorship at the University of Warwick, Emeritus Professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and External Scientific Advisor to the Neuroscience Research Partnership, Singapore. He was succeeded at the MRC by Leszek Borysiewicz.