COVID-19 triggers huge rise in donations for research
The COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of 2020 sparked a huge rise in private philanthropic giving by billionaires and big private company charitable foundations in China with a substantial amount going towards research and development of vaccines, antiviral drugs and other treatments being developed by teams of scientists throughout China but particularly at elite universities and research centres.
A research report on
Pandemic Philanthropy in China by Bridge Consulting’s Beijing Office calculated that some CNY1.8 billion (US$279 million) was contributed to research and development (R&D) in China in the first half of 2020 after a strict lockdown was declared on 23 January 2020 in Wuhan, where the virus is thought to have originated.