February 2025: launching a network to bring researchers together

Bringing brilliant minds together to collaborate on research into eye disease could accelerate our understanding, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of conditions that lead to vision loss and blindness. In a UK first Fight for Sight launched the UK Vision Research Network (UKVRN). 

The first step in building this network was launching a doctoral training programme where students would have co-supervisors from different institutions.

Accelerating research

2024: A bold vision

2024: Save Sight. Change Lives. 

Our new organisation disrupted the vision loss sector with a bold vision to Save Sight. Change Lives. In a foundational year for our charity, we built on the merger of Fight for Sight and Vision Foundation, introducing a bold new look, narrative, and tone of voice. 

The brand narrative is our north star. It drove the merger and informs everything we do. We know when someone faces a diagnosis of vision loss, they face two profound questions. Can this be stopped? How do I live my life? As funders of scientific research and social change, we can answer both questions positively. As our mission says, “We fund the brilliant minds and bright ideas that put change in sight for everyone impacted by vision loss.”

2024 A thriving social change sector

We want to change lives, which we do by funding innovative social change projects - the bright ideas that mean blind and vision-impaired people discover connections, resilience, and confidence.

The Capacity Building Fund, which we launched in 2024, was a perfect example of this work and enabled charities to innovate and build sustainable futures that ensure everyone has the same opportunities, regardless of vision loss.

Discover more in our webinar 2024 Year in Review

2024: focussing on loneliness and isolation

We commissioned the Outside report by Abertay University to explore the experiences of loneliness and isolation among people who are blind or vision-impaired. We used these insights to fund projects designed to support blind and vision impaired people to build connections, confidence and independence. 

A network of friends

2020s: merger matters

2022: Resilience Fund 

Vision Foundation launched the Resilience Fund to provide funding to support sight loss organisations to become more sustainable.

The fund was launched as a response to the challenges of the pandemic, with a second round of funding in January 2024.

The fund makes up part of the £1.5 million we’ve spent on funding social change so far.

Social Change Funding

2022: Groundbreaking report into domestic abuse among blind and vision impaired people

Vision Foundation launched The Unseen alongside the charity SafeLives. This was the first-ever research into the shocking scale and nature of domestic abuse among blind and vision impaired people.

To address these issues, Vision Foundation launched its first-ever nationwide grant-giving round, investing just under £200k into projects focused on tackling domestic violence and abuse.

One successful project was the development of a toolkit to make refuges more accessible.

2021: A centenary celebration

Vision Foundation marked its centenary year with an appeal that raised £784,000 to support employment-related research for blind and vision impaired people.

To link to this, we commissioned research by the University of Birmingham. The See My Skills report was used to inform funding for projects to help tackle barriers and open opportunities for people who are blind and vision impaired.

2020: Support through the pandemic

The Vision Foundation gave out Covid-19 response grants to support sight loss charities through the pandemic.

And it published research showing that lockdown was worsening the exclusion, isolation and anxiety already faced by many blind and partially sighted people.

The campaign #BlindLockdownLife was launched to raise awareness of their needs during the multiple lockdowns.

2019: The Vision Foundation is born

The Greater London Fund for the Blind was renamed the Vision Foundation. It published a five-year strategy to make London accessible for everyone with vision loss and to reduce preventable blindness.

Following the merger with Fight for Sight, we'll focus nationwide on how we can deliver impact. In our social change funding programme for 2024, we have 37 live grants, with a total distribution of £947,200.

2013: Involving patients in our work

Fight for Sight was part of the Sight Loss Priority Setting Partnership. This partnership was designed to determine the priorities of patients, carers, and eye health professionals and use those priorities to help set the agenda for research funding.

Since then, many grants have been made to address those priorities.

Our five-year scientific research strategy sets out our plans for Patient Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE).

2012: Toward a new treatment for glaucoma

Research part-funded by us began to test the effectiveness of a laser-based treatment, compared with the standard method of using eye drops for newly diagnosed cases of glaucoma.

After this research and a follow-up study proved the effectiveness of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty, it became the recommended treatment in 2022.

This is saving the NHS money and means people don’t have to use eye drops for life.

2007: Understanding the link between vision and the brain

Professor Matteo Carandini became GlaxoSmithKline/ Fight for Sight Professor of Visual Neuroscience. We’ve funded Professor Carandini’s chair position at UCL’s Institute of Ophthalmology, which led to over 15 years of prestigious research that has attracted further funding.

His team’s work has led to a better understanding of how vision affects the activity of neurons in the brain. They’ve developed advanced techniques to study electrical activity in individual neurons in the brain and methods to study vision during decision-making.

More recently, we’ve funded work that has advanced our understanding of how eye scans can lead to earlier diagnosis of dementia.

2007: Clinical Trial

In 2007, we helped fund the team that ran the world's first clinical trial to test gene therapy treatment for inherited eye diseases. Clinical trials (where new treatments are tested in human beings) are an important stage in making new cures a reality.

One of our current clinical trials, the TIGER trial at King’s College London, explores whether combining surgery with the existing treatment of anti-VEGF injections could improve results for people with wet age-related macular degeneration.

2007: Children's Eye Centre

We presented Moorfields Eye Hospital with £1 million to develop the Children's Eye Centre research unit.

That work continues today through our funding of several projects at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, which is Moorfields’ research partner.

We’re also funding research projects at more than 15 institutions around the UK, from Plymouth to Ulster, Cardiff to Leeds.

2003: Royal support  

With the loss of our beloved patron, the Queen Mother, HRH The Countess of Edinburgh agrees to become a patron in 2003 (until 2024). The Duchess started supporting eye health in 1999 and has remained an ardent supporter of initiatives, such as Vision 2020, that promote solutions for those with sight loss and eye health needs. HRH supports people with sight loss at home in the UK, across the Commonwealth and globally.

1998: High-profile support 

Sir John Mills CBE becomes our first Senior Vice President (Vision Foundation) to coincide with his 90th birthday celebration. Sir John, who died in 2005, had macular degeneration and struggled with his eyesight in his later years.

1997: Tracking rare eye conditions

Some eye conditions are rare, which can make diagnosis difficult. We helped fund the creation of The British Ophthalmological Surveillance Unit (BOSU). 

BOSU enables investigators to identify patients newly diagnosed with specific rare eye conditions through a monthly reporting (active surveillance) system. It involves all senior ophthalmologists across the UK.

The unit has supported 87 completed studies, leading to over 90 published papers. In 2024, we awarded five more years of funding, which will help develop a modern digital research platform. 

1983: UK Corneal transplant service

The Iris Fund helped to establish the UK Corneal Transplant Service, which helped restore sight to tens of thousands of people.

The service went on to open the Bristol Eye Bank, introducing organ culture storage of corneas to the UK for the first time. Today, the Bristol Eye Bank is one of the largest in Europe.

1965: Funding vision loss research

In 1965, Professor Norman Ashton founded Fight for Sight. He was director of pathology at the Institute of Ophthalmology and a world leader in eye disease research.

He published over 200 papers and trained numerous ophthalmic pathologists who spread their knowledge around the globe. 

In 1965, we established The Prevention of Blindness Fund at the Royal Eye Hospital in Southwark, London (the hospital no longer exists today). The charity later changed its name to the Iris Fund for Prevention of Blindness and became part of Fight for Sight.

We continue to fund research that advances the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of eye disease.