What we fund

We currently administer over 40 grants, including awards for two and three-year projects, research fellowships, postgraduate studentships, equipment and travel.

The charity has the support of the UK's hearing research community, and Professor Quentin Summerfield from the University of York heads a panel of scientific and medical experts who advise on research strategy and have responsibility for the review and monitoring of applications and grants.

In the charity's early years, only relatively modest awards were possible, generally for urgently needed items of equipment or short-term salaries. However, even at that time, our unrivalled access to expert advice ensured that resources were used to maximum advantage and the charity has established a reputation for flexibility and the ability to respond quickly to complement funding from the MRC and the Wellcome Trust.

Through its grants, Deafness Research UK has made a major contribution to several scientific and medical advances including:

• the development and introduction into service of neonatal screening for deafness based on OAE
• the isolation of genes for various forms of syndromal and non-syndromal deafness
• significant findings about the mechanisms of underlying cellular damage and repair in the inner ear
• improvements in signal processing for digital hearing aids to meet the need to improve speech discrimination and understanding, particularly in noisy environments
• improvements in assessment, fitting and rehabilitation for children receiving cochlear implants
• the development of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, a technique that has been shown to help significant numbers of tinnitus patients and which may have to play the major role in helping tinnitus sufferers until more fundamental research delivers medical treatments

Priorities

In practice, grants are concentrated on the following priority areas:

• Fundamental molecular, cellular and developmental research leading ultimately to prevention and medical treatments for hearing loss
• Early detection of deafness and hearing rehabilitation programmes
• Causes and treatment of conductive hearing loss
• Genetics of deafness
• Improving benefit from hearing aids
• Improving benefit from cochlear implants
• Central auditory processing
• Causes and treatment of tinnitus

Applications for funding from Deafness Research UK must demonstrate how the research fits with the charity's research strategy and priority areas. However, these priority areas are not exhaustive and promising work outside of these areas can still be considered.

Please see our application procedures for details on how to apply for grants and the type of award available.