INClUDE

Better Healthcare Through More Inclusive Research

The NIHR-INCLUDE project finished at the end of 2021 and has been absorbed as a knowledge resource into the overall NIHR Under-served Communities Programme of work.

NIHR-INCLUDE was commissioned by the NIHR CRN to address the lack of representation in health and care research with the following vision:

‘provide better health and care through more inclusive research’.


NIHR-INCLUDE has developed guidance to implement findings and achieve the vision, by ways of:

  • a harmonised approach to inform key stakeholders of their roles and responsibilities to deliver inclusive health and care research;

  • being adopted into policy within, and beyond, the NIHR;

  • achieving widespread reach and impact to make health and care research more inclusive;

  • ensuring our findings are informed and relevant, by working collaboratively with under-served communities and the public;

  • informing the NIHR Under-Served Communities programme and the wider work of the NIHR through the NIHR’s Equality Diversity and Inclusion Strategy;

  • forming a key cornerstone of the NIHR’s Strategy - ‘Best Research For Best Health: The Next Chapter’.


The NIHR-INCLUDE Guidelines provide:

  • a strategic overview of potential points for intervention to improve inclusion of under-served groups across the life course of research;

  • key objectives to improve inclusivity;

  • guiding principles for stakeholders to apply the guidance.

Some areas have been addressed at the level of individual communities or projects, whereas other areas require action at national or supra-national level, to provide appropriate regulatory, funding, governance guidance and support.