UofG COVID-19 Response Fund
In April we launched the UofG COVID Response Fund, a fundraising campaign to address the ongoing pandemic. The response from you, our UofG community, has been overwhelming. Thank you.
We identified two urgent areas of need:
- student hardship, helping students with no family support, those with caring responsibilities or with no way of returning home
- research, helping understand the virus and how it spreads.
To date, you have helped us raise a phenomenal £505,000, with more than 650 supporters from over 35 countries. We are so proud of our UofG community, who have come together to support our students in need and given what they can to progress vital research.
Student hardship
Donations to the UofG COVID-19 Response Fund have helped give relief to students as they face these unprecedented times. Whether it was to help meet their rent payments or cover basic expenses, this support was crucial. So far, £1,277,176 has been awarded to more than 2,100 students.
One of our students who benefited from this support said: “Thank you so much for this very generous helping hand, I appreciate it so much as times are becoming ever so harder financially. I'm trying my very best to cope during this time and really am hoping things will start to get back to normal soon.”
COVID-19 Research
The UofG COVID-19 Response Fund has helped enhance the University’s research efforts, ensuring they have the opportunity to be at the forefront of vital research.
The MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), based on our Garscube campus, has the largest group of virologists in the UK. The CVR team are working with partners across the UK and globally on the sequencing of the virus, and their research is pivotal in directly responding to the disease.
One of the first gifts to the UofG COVID-19 Response Fund allowed the CVR to purchase a vital piece of equipment to enable researchers to sequence many more samples every day. This machine has helped to accelerate our research when time really is of the essence. The machine enables the team to extract information from the genetic code to understand the virus and how it spreads. This information is vital in order to identify ways in to defeat it.
You have made a difference at a time when it is needed more than ever. Thank you!
This article was first published June 2020.
Find out more about the UofG COVID-19 Response Fund.