Fight for Sight fund research to better understand the various causes of sight loss and find new treatments.
I was first approached by the research team at Fight for Sight to write a series of impact case studies for their upcoming research strategy document.
At the time, Fight for Sight was merging with another charity, the Vision Foundation. With a lot of the comms capacity in-house taken up by the merger, they were looking to outsource this work to make sure it wasn’t delayed.
I wrote ten case studies in total, based upon documents provided by Fight for Sight and an interview with the researcher leading each project.
Fight for Sight chose the projects to reflect the diversity of their research, in terms of the locations, diseases studied, type of research, and scientists involved.
The 10 case studies were all published on the Fight for Sight website:
- Enabling research to diagnose diseases with eye scans
- Tracking eye movements for people with glaucoma by watching TV
- Giving a voice to young people with visual impairment
- Creating biosynthetic grafts for cornea transplants
- Developing a cell therapy for uveitis
- Revealing the biology of Age-related Macular Degeneration
- Decoding the genetics of inherited retinal diseases
- Revealing the genetics of ocular coloboma
- Preventing sight loss in glaucoma
- Creating new ways to study eye conditions
Two of the impact case studies were adapted to be included in the Fight for Sight Research Strategy 2024-29 [PDF].
Sean Fox, Fight for Sight’s Acting Head of Research at the time, said:
“We’re very happy with the pieces Richard has written, they really fit the bill. The scientists he worked with were also very pleased to receive them. Richard has been a pleasure to work with and very accommodating to our requests.”
Read more about what Sean said about my work.
It was great working with the Fight for Sight team, and to help them out at a busy time. Despite not knowing much about ophthalmology and vision research beforehand, I enjoyed bringing myself up to speed on the background to understand the key concepts involved in the projects.
It was also a privilege to speak to the researchers about their fascinating and varied work, who all sung the praises of the charity and the funding they had received.