Launching our dual strategy to accelerate defeating meningitis

Meningitis Research Foundation, the UK’s largest dedicated charitable funder of research into meningitis, has today announced an ambitious new dual strategy for 2025 – 2030: one that unites global advocacy, public health policy and scientific leadership in a shared mission to defeat meningitis wherever it exists.

These two complementary strategies – a charity-wide organisational strategy and a dedicated research strategy – reflect Meningitis Research Foundation’s position at the forefront of global efforts to support survivors, prevent future cases and drive scientific progress on a disease that still claims more than 200,000 lives each year and affects 2.3 million people globally, many of them young children.

Driving change through research, advocacy and survivor-centred action

Together, the strategies set out how Meningitis Research Foundation will:

• Invest up to £1 million in high-impact meningitis research, focused on the most urgent gaps: vaccine equity, lifelong impacts and access to genomic technology.
• Raise £16 million in new funds to support delivery of global awareness campaigns, research grants and projects, and survivor support.
• Drive national and global change through initiatives like the Meningitis Progress Tracker, the Confederation of Meningitis Organisations’ international advocacy and data-driven health policy.
• Expand World Meningitis Day to reach 80%+ of countries worldwide – already the largest day of collective action on meningitis the world has ever seen.
• Advocate for the inclusion of the MenB vaccine in the UK’s routine immunisation schedule for teenagers – a critical protection gap.

Research strategy: building on a £19.5 million legacy

Since its founding in 1989, Meningitis Research Foundation has invested over £19.5 million in meningitis research – more than any other UK charity dedicated to meningitis. This work has been instrumental in improving vaccines, diagnostics, treatments and post-infection support.

In the next phase, Meningitis Research Foundation’s 2025 – 2030 research strategy will:

• Optimise use of, and access to, vaccines: including on existing and newly licensed vaccines, equitable vaccine access and uptake, and perceptions, attitudes and beliefs which impact vaccine confidence.
• Understand and reduce lifelong impacts: funding catalyst studies into the emotional, economic, physical and psychological cost and outcomes for survivors and their families – especially in under-researched areas like bereavement and mental health.
• Enhance equitable access to pathogen genomics: partnering globally to improve surveillance and build genomic infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries.

“In 2022, we estimate over £88 million was spent globally on meningitis research – but less than 1% was allocated to understanding its long-term impacts,” says Meningitis Research Foundation Chief Executive, Vinny Smith.

“As the UK’s largest dedicated charitable research funder in this space, we want to close those gaps by 2030. We’re proud of our heritage but even prouder of what’s ahead. This dual strategy marks a new chapter – one where science, advocacy and survivor voices come together to achieve something historic. These aren’t just strategic documents – they’re a declaration of intent. Meningitis is still robbing families of futures, especially in communities without access to vaccines, data or support.

“We are uniquely positioned, with over three decades of research funding, a global advocacy network and survivor-led programmes, to meet this challenge head-on. This is how we will defeat meningitis. Not one organisation, not one sector, but together – through research, policy and people.”

Global in reach, personal at heart

Lived experience is central to both strategies. Through our ‘Meningitis in your words’ platform, Meningitis Research Foundation is collecting thousands of stories that directly shape our research, outreach and advocacy.

Ambassadors across the UK and Ireland and CoMO member advocates in nearly 60 countries contribute to such awareness and support initiatives. From personal testimonies in rural Kenya to international genomic partnerships, these strategies reflect a vision that is deeply local, truly global and always people-first.

Researchers, policy leaders, funders and community advocates can read the full strategies and explore how they can work with Meningitis Research Foundation, towards a world free from meningitis:

Our strategy

Research strategy