York wins £6 million research funding

Posted on 11 July 2014

The University of York has secured major new funding to continue its key role in supporting evidence-informed decision-making.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has awarded a £5.25 million five-year contract to the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), and the Centre for Health Economics (CHE), to continue to act as one of the NIHR’s national centres of excellence for health technology assessment. It is the latest in a series of four major funding contracts totalling more than £6.5 million that the Centre has secured this year.

Health technology assessments evaluate the benefits, harms and costs of specific healthcare interventions. They are commissioned to support the needs of NHS decision-making bodies including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Since NICE was established, CRD and CHE have provided the evidence to support the NICE technology appraisal process. The new technology assessment contract will run from 2016 to 2021.

CRD Director, Professor Lesley Stewart said “We are delighted that our highly successful and longstanding relationship with the NIHR HTA programme is to continue. This award adds to other recent funding success and through each of our new programmes, we look forward to delivering independent and rigorous evaluations that are of benefit to the NHS to those who use it services.”

In parallel, the three other new programmes of work are funded until 2017. CRD is leading one of two NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Evidence Synthesis Centres addressing knowledge gaps in key areas of importance to improve the quality, effectiveness and accessibility of service delivery in the NHS.

Funded by the DH Policy Research Programme, CRD is working with the EPPI-Centre at the Institute of Education, together with the Policy Innovation Research Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to provide a bespoke reviews facility to support evidence-informed policy-making in England.

CRD will also lead a new NIHR Cochrane Programme to generate Cochrane systematic reviews of care practices for preterm or sick newborn infants. The multi-disciplinary team will integrate academic expertise with the views of family advocates and NHS clinicians to provide methodologically robust reviews, combining a pragmatic clinical perspective and an understanding of their implications for families, caregivers and service organisations.

Further information:

For more information about the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York, please visit http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funded by the Department of Health to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. Since its establishment in April 2006, the NIHR has transformed research in the NHS. It has increased the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, driven faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and developed and supported the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR plays a key role in the Government’s strategy for economic growth, attracting investment by the life-sciences industries through its world-class infrastructure for health research. Together, the NIHR people, programmes, centres of excellence and systems represent the most integrated health research system in the world. For further information, visit the NIHR website www.nihr.ac.uk