Chair:
Usha Boolaky
Speakers:
- Kamlesh Khunti, Director, NIHR ARC East Midlands and Director of the Centre for Ethnic Health Research
- Nicola Perrin, Chief Executive, Association of Medical Research Charities
- Kathy Rowan, Director, NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research Programme and Director of Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre
This is a time of huge change in health and care research, and more broadly for research and innovation in the UK. Government has committed to substantial increases in public R&D investment, and has launched a series of policy initiatives like the UK R&D roadmap, the new Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the life sciences vision, and the new four nations strategy for clinical research.
Some of these changes are responses to some fundamental criticisms of our research ecosystem – that it is hugely skewed geographically towards London and the south east of England, that it is poor at translating research into innovation, and that we are falling behind other advanced economies in our research investment and performance. They also reflect the experiences of the pandemic – when many traditional ideas about how to do and use research were radically reshaped. What does all this mean for health services research? How should we rethink and reform the systems for research and innovation in health and care?