We announce new research commitments

We're thrilled to announce, during Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, that we're funding the first ever Scottish Colorectal Cancer Surgical Research Chair. We're working with the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and a leading Scottish University, to recruit a surgical academic based in Scotland for this pioneering new position. We're about to kickstart the process in May and expect the recruitment process to take around three months.

We began by funding the UK's first Colorectal Cancer Surgical Research Chair, Professor David Jayne, in 2018 to champion surgical research and his work has already made tremendous progress. His research focus is new medical technology, surgical devices and reducing post-operative complications. Since taking on this role Professor Jayne has launched four new clinical trials, shared his research both nationally and internationally and trained the next generation of researchers. This work will help to advance bowel cancer surgery, saving lives and improving the quality of life of patients.

The Scottish Colorectal Cancer Surgical Research Chair will join Professor Jayne in creating new opportunities for surgical clinical trials to improve the treatment and outcomes for people diagnosed with bowel cancer. Almost everyone diagnosed with bowel cancer will have surgery as part of their treatment, but very few surgical clinical trials in the UK focus on bowel cancer. Our investment in surgical research hopes to change that.

And we're also delighted to announce that we're now able to start funding new research projects again. Because of the pandemic, we had to make the extremely difficult decision to pause our funding of new research, but this incredibly important area of our work will now restart by offering £200,000 worth of pilot grant funding to eight new research projects. Researchers will be able to apply for funds from September.

This pilot grant funding investment empowers researchers across the UK to be bold, innovative and try new ideas as well as allowing talented, emerging researchers to begin their career into bowel cancer research. The findings that emerge from these projects can then be used to secure funds for larger projects that may lead to breakthroughs, helping to improve the detection and treatment of bowel cancer.

Dr Lisa Wilde, Director of Research and External Affairs at Bowel Cancer UK said: "We're so pleased to make these two tremendously important research announcements during Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. Supporting and funding research is fundamental to our work as a charity and the major advances in saving lives from bowel cancer in the past 20 years have all come through research. The pandemic had a catastrophic impact on charity-supported medical research so it's fantastic that we're able to start funding new research projects again. Over the last four years, we've invested £1.3 million in bowel cancer research, helping us to better understand the disease, and ultimately save lives."

• Find out more about the research projects we're currently funding