Geography of Genetics and Genomics Research Funding in Africa

By Eric Coles, G. Mensah. 2017

10 citations recorded by the source corpus.

An estimated $300 billion (USD) is spent each year on medical research. What proportion of this goes to genomics and genetics research in Africa? Until recently, this type of question was nearly impossible to answer. The World RePORT database, sponsored by the Heads of International Research Organizations (HIRO) and managed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides a first attempt at answering questions on the distribution of research funding by geography and research organization. In this journal issue on the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa), we explore the geography of biomedical research funding in the genomics field with special emphasis on Africa. Using World RePORT, we identified 185 research projects in genetics and genomics in Africa in 2015 with total funding exceeding $216 million (USD). These numbers are likely incomplete and more efforts at collating data from funder organizations is needed. A comprehensive snapshot of funders’ portfolios will be invaluable to research investigators and policy makers in the identification of research gaps and analysis of allocation priorities to facilitate evidence-based decision-making for public research-funding organizations.

Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology

Citations in the corpus

• The critical needs and challenges for genetic architecture studies in Africa (2018, unknown): “(H3Africa) Initiative—providing global funding by the NIH (US) and Wellcome Trust (UK) 3 totaling more than $216 million in 2015 for 185 projects in 28 African countries [29].”