There is no governmental funding allocated specifically for dementia research in Hong Kong. Yet, the Government has been funding dementia research through various schemes to support researchers from different disciplines. The TIP-CARD research team has conducted a quick online scan to search for research projects in relation to dementia funded by the Government so far. We investigated the funding records of the major governmental funding bodies with the following inclusion criteria: dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and/or mild cognitive impairment in project title. Up to the end of 2019, a total amount of HKD 201,105,938 has been offered to 163 research projects in relation to dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and/or mild cognitive impairment, through 20 different schemes under 4 governmental funding bodies including The Research Grants Council (RGC), Food and Health Bureau (FHB), Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office (PICO), and Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF). The number of dementia projects funded per year shows an overall increase from 1 project in 2001 to 23 projects in 2019.

The number of funded projects and amount of funding in relation to dementia are categorised by their field of study. Two-third of the funded projects are in the field of biology and medicine, accounting for 77.4% of the total amount of funding. This indicates that basic sciences and medicine continue to be the dominating subject areas for fund allocation. While nearly one-third of the funded projects are in the field of humanities and social sciences, only 16.6% of funds are offered to these projects. Twenty out of the 46 funded projects in humanities in social sciences focus on caregivers or both caregivers and the PwD, while only one study in biology and medicine mentions caregivers in the project title. It is also observed that these projects seldom address the economic aspect of dementia.