The committee is chaired by Grant Stewart, Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
“I recognised that TUF was the only charity that funds research across the whole of urology and I wanted to be involved in the process,” he says.
During his tenure, Grant has overseen significant changes to the TUF funding programme, including the new TUF Trials Unit, developed with colleagues from the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS). wanted to support the very best research that would change practice, so we needed to support trials. The idea is that urologists can come to the TUF Trials Unit with an idea, get advice on it and then turn that idea into an excellent funding application. If it gets funded, then the TUF Trials Unit will help the researchers run the trial,” says Grant.
Another significant change has been introducing the Innovation and Research fund to support new ideas at the early stages. The scheme received so many excellent applications when it was launched last year that TUF secured extra funding to support an additional three projects.
TUF continues to support the urology community through several schemes, such as the Smaller Research Projects fund and our education and training programmes. In the near future, Grant says, TUF aims to introduce new regional awards: “We want to ensure that every region of the UK feels that they have a stake in the charity and can interact with us.”
