About The Ramsay Research Fund
The ME Association funds its medical research via the Ramsay Research Fund. This is a restricted fund which ensures every pound of your donation is used for research investment and no charge is taken for administration.
Dr Melvin Ramsay brought the neurological disease Myalgic Encephalomyelitis to the attention of the medical profession in 1955. He helped establish the ME Association which was founded in 1980 and continued to be a stalwart advocate for people with this disease, until his death in 1990.
The Ramsay Research Fund is focused mainly on Biomedical Research because we need to know what is causing and perpetuating these diseases, but we also recognise the need to invest in Healthcare Research to strengthen healthcare systems — improving medical practice, healthcare provision, patient care, clinical guidelines, education, and policy support — especially in the absence of effective treatments and to support students engaged in ME/CFS/LC research.
- We regard investment in good quality medical research to be a top priority and have established a solid track record in the last 40 years.
- Research means we learn more about ME/CFS and Long Covid – what causes and perpetuates these diseases and why they seem to affect some and not others – and we hope that continued investment will lead to diagnostic markers and clinical tests, to ways of preventing onset, and to effective treatments.
- We can assist interested researchers with pilot investigations and with replication attempts and we can support them when they make grant applications to the Medical Research Council (MRC) or National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
- We believe large-scale biomedical studies and clinical trials are needed to advance this field and where it proves impractical for us to make such investments ourselves, we will seek the support of the MRC and NIHR and work collaboratively with charity partners to fund such projects.
- The charity has been able to build its reserves in recent years, which has allowed us to significantly increase research investment in 2025 and to commission the largest ever biomedical study made by any charity to date (announcement to follow shortly).
Meet the research Committee
All research at the ME Association is overseen by its Research Committee. The committee reviews grant proposals and applications and makes investment recommendations in support of strategic decision-making by the Board of Trustees.
Mike Mitchell
Vice Chair & Trustee
Dr Charles Shepherd
Hon. Medical Adviser
Ewan Dale
Trustee
Nicki Strong
Associate Trustee
Dr Katrina Pears
Research Coordinator
Russ Fleming
Head of Project Development
