The Medical Research Council (MRC) has given the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) £1m to allow members with a research spend below £25m free access to a new impact measurement tool.

The funding will provide three years of access to Researchfish, which launched last summer and allows funders to track projects that they have invested in.

For researchers it means that once they upload their outcomes to Researchfish, all the funders of the project can view them - rather than having to report the outcomes separately to each funder. It is currently being used by 17 funding organisations, ten universities, and 6,500 lead researchers.

Sharmila Nebhrajani, chief executive of AMRC said: “This is a brilliant opportunity for funders big and small to assess their role in shaping UK medical research and improving healthcare. By sharing investment and impact data across the sector, our member charities will better understand where they have the greatest impact.”

The system was developed from another that had been created for the MRC in 2008, allowing it to gather data on research it funded, track developments and measure impact. Other research organisations expressed an interest in the system and so a working party was set up in 2011, with input from the Cancer Research UK, Arthritis Research UK, British Heart Foundation, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, the AMRC and the Chief Scientist Office, to develop a system that could be used by multiple organisations.

AMRC has 123 members. Those with a research spend of more than £25m (not eligible for the free access), such as Cancer Research UK which last year spent £332.2m on research funding, are already using the system.

Parkinson’s UK is already using the system. Bunia Gorelick, research grants manager at the charity, said: “We are planning to invest more than £5m in groundbreaking Parkinson’s research in 2013 – but keeping track of the impact of our research can be challenging.”

Impact measures the charity plans to track include published scientific articles, additional funding and public engagement.

Gorelick added: “We hope using Researchfish will help us to demonstrate the full impact of what we do, so that every project we fund ultimately brings us closer to better treatments and a cure. It will also provide tangible information for our fundraisers to give back to our funders.”

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