Alzheimer’s Society Centre to support the next generation of dementia researchers

A £9million investment by Alzheimer’s Society will help the Institute for Regeneration and Repair support and nurture dementia researchers at the start of their career. A move which is essential to progressing much-needed dementia research.

IRR’s Professor Anna Williams is collaborating with colleagues to help train the next generation of dementia researchers as part of the Alzheimer’s Society Doctoral Training Centre for Vascular and Immune Contributors to Dementia. The Centre will be led by Professor Stuart Allan at Manchester University. 

The centre will support nearly 29 students over five years to enter dementia research, with a quarter of those students being trained at the University of Edinburgh. IRR will welcome its first Doctoral Training Centre student in October 2024. 

We are really looking forward to welcoming our first students onto this exciting programme across our four universities to help research into vascular dementia.

Professor Anna Williams Professor of Regenerative Neurology, IRR

Currently only one in five dementia PhD students go on to stay in dementia research often due to underfunding and the challenging nature of academic careers. They are critical to maintaining the momentum to end the devastation caused by dementia. 

The new Alzheimer’s Society Doctoral Training Centres will play a pivotal role in encouraging people to enter the field of dementia research, as well as create a supportive network. They will provide PhD students with unique access to activity across the centres – widening their options for peer support, networking, knowledge sharing, training, and equipment. This has previously shown to have a powerful effect in helping to support PhD students to continue their careers in dementia research. 

A worrying number of dementia researchers leave the field after finishing their PhDs, so a catastrophic amount of talent and expertise is being lost.

This is a significant investment, that aims to urgently attract and nurture a new, bold and ambitious generation of researchers so we can ramp up the speed and progress of life-changing breakthroughs so desperately needed for people living with this devastating condition.

These Doctoral Training Centres will give students in the early stages of their dementia research careers fantastic opportunities to collaborate with their peers and build knowledge, as well as access world-class expertise, the latest technology and training. Their research will lead to vital new knowledge where huge gaps remain.

Research will beat dementia, but we need to make it a reality sooner. One in three people born today will go on develop dementia in their lifetime, so it’s vital we boost the research field to help people now and give hope to those who will be affected in the future. 

Fiona Carragher Alzheimer’s Society

A Doctoral Training Centre for Vascular and Immune Contributors to Dementia

Blood vessels and changes to the immune system play a key role in the underlying causes of dementia and this centre aims to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms involved and how they could be targeted to develop through new treatment.  

By building on this understanding, the students and their supervisors hope to improve diagnosis by identifying the very earliest signs, find ways to modify these signs through new and innovative treatments as well as improve care for patients with dementia. 

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