{"id":4674,"date":"2023-08-18T10:44:33","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T10:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mecfs-research.org\/?p=4674"},"modified":"2025-11-27T19:45:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T19:45:48","slug":"fundingstrategy2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mecfs-research.org\/en\/fundingstrategy2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Research funding strategy of the ME\/CFS Research Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update<\/strong>: our current funding strategy for 2026<\/a><\/span> was published on 28 November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until mid-2024, the foundation will focus its funding on maintaining and expanding the essential ME\/CFS research networks that have been established in Germany since 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2022, ME\/CFS Research Foundation has been campaigning for more biomedical research on ME\/CFS. We and many other organisations, initiatives and patients are calling for more public research funding. For decades, much less research has been done on ME\/CFS than on other diseases that occur with similar frequency or even less frequently. The interest of the pharmaceutical industry is correspondingly low to invest money for clinical studies in a disease that has so far been insufficiently researched. As a result, there are still no causal treatment options for this chronic and often severe disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only a personal tragedy for the more than 500,000 patients and their families and relatives (data for Germany, as of 2021). The majority of patients can no longer participate in work, school or social life. The lack of research funding for ME\/CFS is also a socio-political problem of great dimensions. More than 500,000 patients not only cost the health and social systems a lot of money. They are also urgently needed at workplaces, in their families and in their social environment, or are unable to complete an education. Patients are often too ill to graduate from school.

More funding for ME\/CFS research will create better diagnostics and treatment options. This would allow patients to participate in normal life again. As ME\/CFS Research Foundation, we are convinced of this and are committed to achieving just that goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Today, we would like to make our overall objective as a research-funding organisation more concrete and thus more transparent. Because our work needs a lot of money and commitment, which we can only achieve with many donations and a high level of trust from patients, donors, the scientific community and the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, we want to explain our research funding strategy today<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research funding Strategy \u2013 phase 1:<\/strong> Since the establishment of the ME\/CFS Research Foundation, in addition to building up the organisation itself, we have initially focused on networking among researchers. Among other things, we helped organise and finance the ME\/CFS conference at the Charit\u00e9<\/span><\/a><\/strong> in May 2023. Over 60 international researchers presented and discussed their current projects to an expert audience of over 400 participants. Together with the team of the Charit\u00e9 Fatigue Centre (CFC), we will continue to develop this conference into an annual networking event and a reference point for ME\/CFS research, both in Germany and internationally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, we informed patients and the general public about the state of research in Germany in a format of generally understandable language and in German language. For this purpose, following the conference, and in close cooperation with the CFC, on 12 May 2023, the international ME\/CFS Awareness Day, we co-organised and financed the ME\/CFS Symposium<\/span><\/a><\/strong> with the Charit\u00e9. Registrations for the livestreaming of the symposium far exceeded our expectations and the technical resources at the time. This was a great success and a clear sign of the immense interest of patients and the public in up-to-date information on ME\/CFS research. We are currently working on new digital formats to better meet this great interest in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientific networking of our organisation and our close links with leading ME\/CFS researchers recently took another step forward with the announcement of our Scientific Advisory Board<\/span><\/a><\/strong> . This board will advise and support the Foundation in the orientation and prioritisation of future direct research funding, i.e. in decisions on the allocation of funding to individual project proposals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Beyond scientific networking - what specific research projects are to be funded by the Foundation in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, a little background information<\/strong>: As presented at the ME\/CFS Symposium<\/span><\/a> the few ME\/CFS research projects in Germany were only privately funded for a long time. Since 2020\/21, the COVID 19 pandemic and the subsequent wave of post-COVID patients have generated more attention for post-infectious, chronic disease patterns - in medicine and also in politics and the general public. Thus, since 2021, there has finally also been public research funding - at federal and state level (so far in 4 of 16 federal states). In particular, funding from the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and the BMG (Federal Ministry of Health), in conjunction with funding from Bavaria, has made it possible to create the following basic research structures and alliances:<\/p>\n\n\n\n