Marie Curie Chair in Palliative and End of Life Care, University College London, years 6-10

A senior palliative care researcher has been given a decade of flexible funding to build a world-class research programme, with no fixed project plan—just a mandate to lead and respond to emerging needs. This matters because palliative and end-of-life care is under-researched compared to curative medicine, and many patient groups are routinely excluded from studies. The grant funds a Chair at University College London who directs a department investigating how to improve care for people with dementia, the homeless, and patients with advanced liver disease—groups whose voices are seldom heard in research. The team also studies practical clinical questions around prognostication, sedation, and symptom control. Because the award was tied to a person rather than a specific project, the post holder could adapt priorities as the research landscape shifted. This flexibility has been the key to the department’s success. The impact is a sustained, responsive research programme that generates evidence for how to care for people at the end of life, including those currently underserved by existing services. No immediate clinical breakthrough is promised, but the work builds the knowledge base that future guidelines and training will rely on.