Research offers the greatest hope of improving outcomes for people diagnosed with a brain tumour. A better understanding of these diseases, new treatments and improved monitoring all depend on sustained research investment.
A new analysis by Brain Tumour Research has shown that investment in research into brain tumours across the UK has increased in recent years, reaching more than £26 million in 2023/24, compared with around £18.5 million in 2019/20. This increase is a result of more funding from both charitable and government sources.
The increase is encouraging and political momentum is building with the investment in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, and the roll out of the National Cancer Plan for England and Rare Cancers Act.
But brain tumours remain one of the most challenging forms of cancer to treat and are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under the age of 40. Only around one in four people diagnosed with a brain tumour survive for five years or more, and for many aggressive types of tumours, such as glioblastoma, there have been no new treatments for more than 20 years. The cost of conducting research has also increased substantially over the past decade. This means that while overall investment has grown, the funding does not go as far as it once did.
We need more investment to accelerate the development of new treatments, improve survival and quality of life for patients and families, and ultimately find a cure.
Our goal: Increase national investment in research into brain tumours to at least £45 million per year by 2029, helping to close the funding gap with comparable cancers and accelerate progress towards better treatments and outcomes for patients.
Investment has increased over the last five years
Between 2019/20 and 2023/24, total UK investment in research into brain tumours increased from £18.5 million to £26.2 million per year. During this period, government investment grew, accounting for just 9% of national brain tumour research investment in 2019/20 but rose to 26% by 2023/24. Charities still provide the majority of research investment.
In 2023/24, charities provided nearly three-quarters (74%) of all investment in brain tumour research, with the government contributing just 26%.
Investment still lags behind other cancer types
The increased investment demonstrates growing recognition of the need to support research into brain tumours to transform outcomes for patients. However, funding levels remain lower than some other disease areas with comparable patient populations.
Leukaemia affects a comparable number of patients each year in the UK and has benefited from decades of sustained research investment that has led to major improvements in outcomes. In the 1970s, the 10-year survival rates for brain tumours and leukaemia were comparable and woefully low at 7% and 9% respectively. Since then, 10-year survival rates for leukaemia have increased to nearly 50% thanks to research investment, while brain tumour survival rates are still below 20%.
In 2023/24, the national investment in research into leukaemia research was one and a half times higher than the investment in brain tumours at £40 million. While Government funding accounted for just 26% of the investment into brain tumours, it stood at 34% for leukaemia research.
Closing the gap
Although investment in brain tumours has increased steadily, a significant gap remains between funding for brain tumours and funding for other cancer types such as leukaemia. Based on current trends, investment in research into brain tumours is expected to continue to grow and could reach around £35 million per year by 2027/28. However, investment in leukaemia research is also forecast to follow the same trend, meaning that without further action the gap will persist. We are not advocating for disinvestment in any disease area, but we are calling for increased research funding for brain tumour patients.
That is why Brain Tumour Research is campaigning to increase the national investment in research into brain tumours to at least £45 million per year by 2029, closing the gap with comparable cancers, strengthening the UK's brain tumour research community and accelerating the development of new treatments for patients.
Why increased investment matters
Every year, nearly 13,000 people are diagnosed with a primary brain tumour in the UK, yet treatment options for many tumour types have changed little over recent decades.
Greater investment in research is important to:
- Expand the number of researchers working in the field
- Support larger and more ambitious research programmes
- Accelerate the translation of discoveries into new treatments to deliver more trials
- Improve outcomes for patients diagnosed with a brain tumour
Research is changing this. Scientists are improving our understanding of how brain tumours develop, identifying new therapeutic targets and testing innovative approaches that could lead to more effective treatments.
Sustained national investment is essential if we are to turn these discoveries into real benefits for patients and families. Reaching £45 million of annual investment by 2029 would represent a significant step towards creating the scale of research effort needed to deliver faster progress for everyone affected by a brain tumour. This funding needs to continue to increase year on year and not stagnate.
About the analysis
This analysis was undertaken by Brain Tumour Research using information kindly provided by UK charities that fund research into brain tumours, alongside publicly available data on government-funded research portfolios. Information on leukaemia was retrieved from the Dimensions database.
To provide a fair assessment of annual investment, funding was distributed across the lifetime of each research project using project start and end dates. For example, a project worth £1 million running over four years would be counted as £250,000 per year. This is a standard way to interpret and report on investment data.
Government-funded projects were identified through publicly available research databases using a range of brain tumour-related search terms.
Methodology and limitations
As with any national investment analysis, there are important limitations.
Some large research programmes may not have been captured if brain tumours were not explicitly referenced in project descriptions. Multi-cancer projects that included brain tumours were counted in full because available data did not allow costs to be split between disease areas. In addition, charity data are reported according to individual organisations' financial years, which vary and cannot be fully standardised within the analysis.
The analysis includes all available data up to 2023/24. More recent years were excluded because complete reporting was not yet available across all funders at the time of analysis.
