Making research inclusive

It is important that health and social care research includes participants from all regions and communities, meeting the needs of the whole population. We know that research does not always take place where it is most needed. In some areas there might be high case numbers of a specific condition but relatively few research studies to take part in.

Some groups of people are less well represented in research. We refer to these as ‘under-served’ communities. We need to include under-served communities in research to ensure that research findings apply to everyone.

What is an ‘under-served’ community?

We define an under-served community as:
“A group that is less well represented in research than would be desirable from population prevalence and healthcare burden.”

The definition is specific to the context. It can depend on the:

• the population
• the condition under study
• the question being asked by research teams
• the intervention being tested

Common characteristics are likely to include:

• lower inclusion in research than we would expect from population estimates
• high healthcare burden that is not matched by the volume of research designed for the group
• differences in how a group responds to, or engages with, healthcare interventions, with research failing to address these factors

Resources, frameworks and good practice

The Research Inclusion team has collated a range of guidance for research teams on making research more inclusive. Login to NIHR Learn and enrol on the: Research Inclusion Toolkits Hub.

NIHR-INCLUDE Frameworks

Linked to the NIHR-INCLUDE project, a series of frameworks have been developed that aim to help trial teams think carefully about which groups should be included in their trial for its results to be widely applicable, and what challenges there may be to making this possible.

• The INCLUDE Ethnicity Framework
• The INCLUDE Impaired Capacity to Consent Framework
• The INCLUDE Socioeconomic Disadvantage Framework

How we are making research more inclusive

Funding criteria and performance management

We offer a range of funding opportunities for researchers, and occasionally run open-competitions which relate to specific health challenges or evidence gaps.

We want to encourage all researchers to think about under-served communities when planning and designing their research proposals.

If you’re applying for funding, you will need to justify how your research has been designed inclusively. This includes explaining how and why under-served groups have been considered. This will come into effect from the end of 2024.

Find out more about research inclusion as a condition of NIHR funding .

Promoting research training where it is needed

Research funding is often awarded to the same small number of places and organisations. This means we don’t always have research expertise in areas where it is needed. For example, research into long-term conditions such as mental ill-health and diabetes indicates that recruitment is disproportionately low in areas with higher prevalence (Bower et al 2020).

To help address this, we promote and encourage training for people in less research-active areas of the UK, for example through a masters degree in research in our NIHR fellowship schemes.

We aim to develop a pipeline of researchers to build capacity in those areas where it is needed. In the longer term, this will start the journey to have research leaders of the future throughout the country to ensure equal access to research.

Learn more about the different NIHR fellowships that are available and key application dates.

Help us be more inclusive

If you have any case studies or examples of barriers that you have faced when delivering research in under-served communities, please contact us at researchinclusion@nihr.ac.uk