Report of Representative on Medical Research Council

In previous years the work of the Medical Research Council has been organised around an annual calendar concluding on March 31. This has now been abandoned in favour of a normal calendar year, mainly in order to match the Council's accounting with that of the University of Otago, through which office most of the Medical Research Council payments are channelled. This change has resulted in a period of nine months during 1957 for which financial arrangements have been anomalous.

Last year, I reported the amount of the Government grant was £70,000, and expressed the hope that for the current year this would be raised to about £100,000 in order to cope with an ever expanding research programme.

The sum which has actually been allocated for the current calendar year is £92,000, with slightly greater sums in the two subsequent years of the triennium. The nine months intervening between the two complete financial years was met by a grant of £60,000. This increase in the Council's funds has made it possible to plan needful extensions to current activities of its own, and also to support with greater sympathy duly accredited researches outside its own jurisdiction. During the period under review, a number of bequests have been made, mainly for specific objectives. Notably among these has been a public subscription from the people of Gisborne and district which, together with a Government subsidy, has enabled an electron microscope to be purchased for the use of Research Committees in Dunedin. A further private donation will enable this installation to be adequately supported by the necessary auxiliary equipment.

Research activities under all the eleven research committees previously constituted continue to progress in a healthy manner, and a large volume of published work is reported. The new Hydatids Research Committee, which is sponsored jointly by Medical Research Council and other interested bodies, has not yet made progress other than in a survey of the extent of the problem. Its future plans will be determined largely by the problem of accommodation, which is at present under negotiation. Further professional staff is under consideration for assembly as soon as practicable.

L. Bastings, Representative of the Royal Society of New Zealand on The Medical Research Council.