It has been yet another busy year for the NIHR and, as the summer draws to a close, now is the perfect time to examine the significant events involving the organisation over recent months. Perhaps most notable of all is the appointment of Dr Gail Marzetti as Director of the Science, Research and Evidence directorate at DHSC, replacing the esteemed Dr Louise Wood, and will use her 25 years of policy experience to benefit the NIHR’s leadership going forward.

Diversity in healthcare and health research has been at the forefront of health news recently as evidence has shown some medical devices do not work as effectively on skin with darker pigmentation. In their bid to tackle this issue, the NIHR has published the Race Equality Framework – a self-assessment tool to help organisations improve racial equality in public involvement in health and care research.

Also published is new guidance which helps to make it easier for organisations, researchers, and involvement staff to pay members of the public, developed by NIHR together with Health and Care Research Wales and HRA. The NIHR has also lowered payment thresholds for NHS trusts delivering non-commercial clinical research, which will grant them additional funding to deliver studies across England.

As part of an ongoing process, the NIHR and other partners are undertaking a review of their studies to examine which ones would not be moving forward to help manage the ongoing difficulties faced by the NHS R&D system. Further information on this topic can be accessed here.

The NIHR also underwent a name change in April to better reflect their commitment to social care research. The acronym now stands for the ‘National Institute for Health and Care Research’. In other exciting developments, the NIHR has announced 14 new co-funded research projects to develop technologies including self-care apps, smart devices and wearables to allow people to better take care of themselves at home.

The NIHR’s commitment to social care research is underlined by the announcement that their Research for Social Care call is to run twice a year with increased funding. The research will now also include children and young people’s social care.

All the latest NIHR news can be found here.