The NIHR has developed the Adding Value in Research model to ensure that our research answers the most important questions and is appropriately designed, efficiently delivered, unbiased, published in full, appropriately disseminated, and usable.
The initial framework was developed based on the 2009 work of Sir Iain Chalmers and Professor Paul Glasziou on avoidable waste in research and the later Lancet series.
The current version was also significantly influenced by the work of the Ensuring Value in Research Development and Collaboration Forum. In particular we have adopted their ten guiding principles to support research funders in increasing the value of the research they fund.
The NIHR was a co-founder and now co-convener of an international funders’ forum: the Ensuring Value in Research Funders’ Collaboration and Development Forum.
The Adding Value in Research framework has five pillars.
Setting justifiable research priorities
Articulating the NHS's own research priorities better
In 2017, NHS England and the NIHR published a joint statement committing to 12 actions to support and apply research in the NHS.
One of these actions relates to setting out research priorities for national NHS programmes.
NHS England’s Research Needs Assessment 2018 summarises the information and areas for research identified by NHS England, to provide an early signal of potential research requirements across the wider clinical portfolio. We are now developing a number of funding calls to commission research in the areas identified by the needs assessment.
Another relates to setting out local NHS research and innovation priorities of Academic Health Science Networks and Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships.
The consultation we jointly commissioned with the NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I) and the Academic Health Science Network identified the need for innovation and research around:
- Developing the current and future workforce
- Delivering mental health services and providing care for patients with mental health issues
- Integrating services to provide for patients with complex needs such as – multimorbidities, frailty, and for older people and socially isolated people or communities
The findings will be used to facilitate further discussions involving patients and the public and the research community to refine the priorities and better understand the local context and challenges.
Collaborating to set research priorities
The James Lind Alliance brings together patients, carers and health professionals who face practical decisions about a particular health area in Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs).
More information is available about the PSPs.
Ensuring design, conduct and analysis are robust and appropriate
The Concordat to Support Research Integrity, to which the NIHR is a signatory, ensures that research produced by or in collaboration with the UK research community is underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity.
The NIHR supports the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research which outlines the principles of good practice in the management and conduct of health and social care research in the UK. This framework is vital for ensuring that health research is conducted to high scientific and ethical standards. All NIHR-funded research must be completed in accordance with these standards.
Read more information about appropriate research design, conduct and analysis.
Regulation and management of research conduct proportionate to risks
We regulate and manage of research conduct through relationships, for example with the Health Research Authority, through active contract management and support, and with the NIHR Local Clinical Research Networks. The networks provide the infrastructure that allows high-quality clinical research to take place in the NHS so that patients can benefit from new and better treatments.
We help researchers set up clinical studies quickly and effectively; support the life-sciences industry to deliver their research programmes; provide health professionals with research training; and work with patients to ensure their needs are at the very centre of all research activity.
Complete information on methods and findings are accessible and usable
Publication of trial results
Timely disclosure of study results is important for ethical, moral, accountability, research integrity and waste reduction perspectives. The NIHR, as a public funder of research involving patients and the public, places particularly high value on these principles and is a signatory to the WHO Joint statement on public disclosure of results from clinical trials.
One key output of our Adding Value in Research initiative to date is the NIHR policy on clinical trial registration and disclosure of results, published in May 2019. This policy aims to improve practice in prospective Registration and timely disclosure of results from NIHR-funded clinical trials, with the objective of raising the probability of impact through greater transparency.
The NIHR has completed an audit of award holder compliance with the NIHR’s registration requirements, which overall highlights that 94% of clinical trials had notified the NIHR of their registration in a public registry. Further analysis of the NIHR clinical trials registered in ISRCTN registry, highlighted that 77% of clinical trials had complied with NIHR’s requirement to register prospectively.
You can read the full details of our findings in our report on the Audit of Compliance with NIHR Clinical Trial Registration Requirements (2019-2020).
We support the aims and goals of Plan S, an initiative by a consortium of research funders to make all publicly funded, peer-reviewed research publications immediately and freely Open Access to the reader. Read our open access policy.
Sharing of research data
The NIHR strongly supports the appropriate sharing of data produced during research, to help deliver research that maximises benefits to patients and the wider public, the health and care system and which contributes to economic growth in the UK.
Read our full position statement on the sharing of research data.
Sharing our portfolio
We make our research portfolio publically available online through the NIHR Funding and Awards website and NIHR Open Data. These two searchable resources provide information on people, organisations, outputs (including links to publications), outcomes and impacts for NIHR-funded and supported research.
We also publish transparent, full accounts of the research we fund in our own free, open-access, permanently archived peer-reviewed journals - the NIHR Journals Library.
Further information about our portfolio is available
Findings are appropriately and effectively disseminated
Support with dissemination and knowledge mobilisation
We offer researchers guidance and support with dissemination and knowledge mobilisation, to ensure that research findings reach the right people and can be introduced into practice.
Get in touch
Share your thoughts on adding value in research by emailing us at addingvalueinresearch@nihr.ac.uk.