Public Health Research
Promoting a coherent approach to funding public health
research
The major funders of UK public health research
have joined forces under the auspices of the UKCRC to develop a
coordinated approach to improving the public health research
environment in the UK.
This began with the formation of a UKCRC
Strategic Planning Group chaired by Professor Ian Diamond of the
Economic and Social Research Council.
By examining findings from major reviews in
the area, mapping the activities of funders and consulting leading
public health stakeholders and experts, two overall areas for
improvement were identified. These were the need to:
- Build academic capacity by establishing a range of new academic
posts and strong training and career development programmes,
and
- Boost the infrastructure needed to support high quality
research, including technical staff, IT systems, equipment, and
administrative support.
This work is documented in the Strategic
Planning Group's report.
The outcome was the creation of five
UKCRC
Public Health Research Centres of Excellence in
Newcastle, Cardiff, Belfast, Cambridge and
Nottingham. These Centres bring together leading experts from
a range of disciplines with practitioners, policy makers and wider
stakeholders in order to address complex public health issues that
will potentially have a significant impact on the nation’s
health.
Besides building academic capacity and
boosting the infrastructure needed to support high quality
research, the Centres are also designed to promote leadership and
to tackle issues such as methodology and use of existing data sets.
The Centres are working closely with existing initiatives and other
centres both in public health and related disciplines.
Over £20 million investment has been committed
to the initiative by the funding partners. The funds were awarded
on a competitive basis, with up to £5 million available for each
Centre over a 5-year period. Each Centre is supporting an active
career development programme and is undertaking high quality
research with a strong emphasis on translational or applied
activity.
The competition to establish the Centres
consisted of a two-stage process, and final funding
decisions were made in December 2007. The
Economic and Social Research Council, in conjunction with the
National Prevention Research Initiative Secretariat, provided the
administrative management for the competition on behalf of the
funders.
The organisations contributing to this joint
initiative are:
- British Heart Foundation
- Cancer Research UK
- Department of Health
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Medical Research Council
- Research and Development Office for the
Northern Ireland Health and Social Services
- Wales Office of Research and Development
- Wellcome Trust
A
PowerPoint slide giving an overview of the UKCRC Public Health
Research Centres of Excellence is available to download.