We continue to be fortunate enough to receive gifts, donations and legacies every year. These, coupled with prudent investment, help to maintain and augment the original endowment fund, ensuring that we continue to be able to support early-career researchers as they work to improve the health of the nation. All donations, large and small, are welcome, received with gratitude by the Members and noted in our Annual Review and Annual Report & Accounts in the year they are received. Some recent ones have been particularly noteworthy and we provide a little information about them here.

Vipiana Award

During 2006, Medical Research Scotland learned it was to receive a donation of approximately £180,000 from a Trust Fund of Monsieur Richard Vipiana, Baron of Elie & St Monans. The funds were received in 2010, when it was agreed that, in recognition of his generosity and in keeping with his existing interests in supporting medical research, a suitable research project grant would bear his name. M. Vipiana selected the three-year grant awarded in February 2010 to Dr Carl Goodyear (Clinical Neurosciences, Glasgow University) and colleagues, whose project is entitled "Inhibition of osteoclastogenesis by immunomodulatory complexes".

Pain Management Research

In February 2007, we received a substantial legacy from benefactor who wished to remain anonymous, but had who had stipulated that the funds be used for research into heart disease and into pain management. We regularly receive funding applications related to heart disease, however we receive relatively few applications for work in the difficult, but very important field of pain management. As a result, the Members took the unusual step of actively publicising (for one year only) the availability of earmarked funds for work in this field and a number of high-quality research proposals resulted. We now receive and consider pain-related applications routinely.

Clinical Research Fellowship

In 1997 a substantial part of the estate of the late Miss Violet C. Nasmyth of Edinburgh was bequeathed to the Trust and, after much detailed consideration of how best to mark this, the Members decided to use the income from its investment to fund a two-year travelling clinical fellowship. This was at a time when the future of clinical research seemed insecure as a result of major changes to post-qualification clinical training and career structures throughout the UK, which were failing to provide both time to learn and any structured research training opportunities for medically-qualified individuals. Awards were made biennially for several years, until a combination of falling investment income and further changes in medical training and career paths made their continuation inappropriate in that form.

Two pilot schemes

Mrs Mary Tyson lived in Dumfries and, following receipt of a generous legacy from her estate, the Members decided to use the income to support research by those working in the Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Professions. These professions have always fallen within the funding remit for Medical Research Scotland, but few applications had been successful in reaching the required standards. It was felt that by creating a dedicated funding stream, on a pilot basis for up to three years, more higher-quality proposals might be forthcoming. The pilot started in 2006 and an award was made in each of the first two years. As no applications were received by the closing date for the third year, the Members decided to reconsider the future use of Mrs Tyson's bequest.

In 2009, an opportunity arose to work in partnership with the Scottish Government on its new Senior Clinical Research Fellowship Scheme by offering, again on a three-year pilot basis, to provide additional support, to those appointed under the Scheme, in a form which would also encourage young scientists to become involved in medical research.

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