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UCL Campaign: 1 Year On - Honouring the Wolfson Foundation

10 October 2017

In May 2017, UCL welcomed the staff and trustees of the Wolfson Foundation to UCL to celebrate the impact of their £20 million award made in 2012 to support dementia research.

The award, the largest ever made by the Wolfson Foundation, created the UK’s only clinical research facility dedicated to experimental medicine in neurodegeneration. The Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre brings together basic research, clinical research, and doctoral training focused on understanding and disrupting diseases including dementia, motor neurone disease and Huntington’s disease. Based at the heart of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, the centre reflects UCL’s focus on bringing together clinical and scientific excellence.

The event was an opportunity to recognise the Wolfson Foundation as one of UCL’s key supporters and their role in helping UCL tackle the devastating consequences of dementia and neurodegenerative conditions. Health, and specifically the goal of finding treatments and cures for dementia, form a core priority of UCL’s It’s All Academic philanthropic fundraising campaign. Speaking at the event, Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences, thanked the Wolfson Foundation for their generous investment that advanced UCL’s world-leading neuroscience research.

“When I was first appointed Dean of the Faculty of Brain Sciences in 2011, I said that I hoped we would see a substantial rise in profile and productivity in neuroscience in the coming years. Helping to establish the remarkable Leonard Wolfson Centre and now the hub of the UK DRI goes beyond what I imagined we could have achieved in the space of six years.”

Since the Campaign was officially launched in September 2016, its total has reached £344 million – over half way towards its target of £600 million. In December 2016, UCL’s excellence in neuroscience research was recognised when it was announced that UCL will be the research hub and operational headquarters of the new £250m UK Dementia Research Institute.