gair rhydd y Monday June 8th 2015 | freeword | Issue 1057
In this week’s issue: Why immigration from Eritrea is about more than just Europe, why the Snooper’s Charter is a waste of time, and why English devolution will make the nations less equal
MEDIC Forward: a disaster in consultation
t €1.2mil grant from cancer charity Marie Curie could be “handed back” as leading professor also put “at risk” by controversial MEDIC Forward project
t Plus: BHF confirms 98% of charity’s £5.25mil Wales heart research fund at risk (page 4) EXCLUSIVE Michael O’ConnellDavidson
M
ore research funding has been put at risk as a result of the ongoing MEDIC Forward consultation, according to School of Medicine sources. Prof. Marian Ludgate, the professor at the helm of the €1,200,000 INDIGO project, is yet another academic to have received an “at risk” letter warning of potential redundancy. Prof. Ludgate conducts research as part of the Institute of Molecular and Experimental Medicine, where many other academics are understood to have received “at risk” letters. This revelation come just weeks after it was revealed that Prof. Alan
Williams, who was also warned that he may be made redundant, was to receive a grant of £1,000,000 from the BHF to continue his research into heart disease. Since Gair Rhydd’s original report, the University has withdrawn Williams’ “at risk” letter, but numerous other academics including Prof. Ludgate are at risk. If Prof. Ludgate’s area of research is disinvested from, it would hail the end of Cardiff University’s involvement in the INDIGO project. INDIGO is a Marie Curie-funded initiative in which Cardiff, working in conjunction with universities in Germany and Italy, is conducting research into
North Wales Health Board a “failure” P20 >>
“to investigate how microorganisms shape the immune response leading to autoimmune disease.” The project is “investigat[ing] the microbiome in Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition in which autoantibodies mimic the hormone TSH” leading to an “over-active thyroid”. Some patients also “develop a potentially sight-threatening condition called Graves’ orbitopathy”. The grant, awarded in October 2014 was hailed as a “major” success for IMEM, with funding for the project set to last a number of years. Since then, however, MEDIC Forward has targeted Thyroid research as a po-
Can the law stop legal highs? P24 >>
tential area of disinvestment less than a year after the grant was awarded. It is understood that if Thyroid research is disinvested from, and Prof. Ludgate is redeployed or offered a redundancy package, the unused grant money would have to be returned. The consequences of this would be “disastrous” according to sources. A source at the School of Medicine, who wished to remain anonymous, said that: “the reputational damage to the School of Medicine would be huge if that grant is handed back, but that doesn’t seem to deter MEDIC Forward.” School of Medicine sources have
A year in Gair Rhydd stories P8 >>
Pictured: King George V Drive, at the Heath Park campus
Continued on page 4