Developing a long-term research agenda

The Health Foundation commissioned Ipsos UK, with RAND Europe and The Strategy Unit, to examine how the UK’s research ecosystem can support wider societal resilience in the face of health shocks. 

The conclusions identify potential steps for actors in the research eco-system to take to develop a long-term research agenda for resilience-oriented research. The implications are by necessity broad but can be used as a conversation starter across different organisations:

Establish the core features of a UK long-term research agenda by using and building on existing frameworks

Steps towards making a more resilience-oriented UK research ecosystem can be built on frameworks that exist already, most notably the UN Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery which was tested extensively during the project. But the biggest challenges the UK will face in recovering from this pandemic and preparing for future health shocks – such as inequalities in health and digital access – cut across the roadmap’s main themes, highlighting the long-term and interdisciplinary nature of the resilience challenge.

Determine the key areas of research focus to build future resilience by connecting and incentivising research agendas

The UK’s existing research infrastructure and output is generally considered well-placed for contributing to future resilience. However, there was also clear view that there are several areas for improvement. These include harnessing the potential for more focus on connecting existing research agendas generated by the interdisciplinary nature of resilience and, to aid greater collaboration, revisiting incentives in research to encourage this.

Coordinate efforts to define strategies and approaches which will move the research ecosystem towards resilience-oriented research

Despite the generally positive picture, the areas for improvement will require significant and coordinated intervention owing to the structural, and long-standing nature of the challenges. In addition to interdisciplinarity there is a need to bring in evidence from a wider range of sources, involving a wider range of participants, including the public. Most importantly, responsibility for addressing these does not sit within one type of organisation but is distributed across a range of actors within the system, whose efforts must be effectively co-ordinated and communicated to achieve maximum impact.

Methods and approach

Developing the long-term research agenda has been a multi-modal and interdisciplinary effort. After a scoping phase and desk research, the main research comprised:

• Further research and scoping interviews with funders and strategic advisors to the Health Foundation to develop the project’s focus and approach; 
• Workshops with the Health Foundation Inclusion Panel and representatives from organisations that advocate for underrepresented groups that were more strongly affected by the pandemic – older people, younger people, those with disabilities and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. This phase allowed these groups to shape the aims of the latter engagement stages of the project;
• In-depth interviews with stakeholders including research funders, academics, policy experts from public and industry backgrounds, and representatives of health practitioners. The interviews covered their views on the priorities for research and important characteristics of a long-term research agenda. These interviews used a Delphi-based method with a second phase questionnaire that developed emerging themes and areas of consensus further; 
• Workshops with members of the public to understand their perspectives on research priorities as a result of their pandemic experiences.