About the UK Dementia Research Institute

Launched in 2017, the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) is the single biggest investment the UK has ever made in dementia thanks to founding funders the Medical Research Council (MRC), Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Around 900,000 people in the UK have dementia and the number of people affected will continue to grow as the population ages. There are currently no effective therapeutics for any of the neurodegenerative conditions that give rise to dementia. The Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2020 set a target for research to identify treatments for dementia by 2025. The UK DRI is leading the UK’s dementia research efforts and tackling the huge challenge of the condition, which is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales.

Dementia represents one of the toughest medical and economic challenges facing our society today. The UK DRI is here to change this. The Institute will transform treatment and care for people with dementia. We are leading the way in early diagnosis and uncovering how to prevent dementia. With this boost in funding, it's time to catch up with the knowledge base acquired in other diseases.

We're revolutionary in scale and scope. The UK DRI breaks new ground by bringing together world-leading expertise in biomedical, care and translational dementia research in a national institute currently made up of over 750 researchers and a support team of over 50, all growing rapidly.

The Institute carries out research relevant to all dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, vascular dementia, Huntington’s disease and beyond.

The Institute is structured so that our researchers are connected, wherever their labs are based. Having seven centres located across the UK allows us to bring people together for shared scientific inspiration, whilst making the most of cutting-edge tools and infrastructure locally.

UCL is home to the operational headquarters of the UK Dementia Research Institute, together with a research centre embedded within the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.  It forms the hub for research activities across the seven national UK DRI research centres.  The other six UK DRI research centres are: