Background

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the research and development arm of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). NIHR’s mission is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research, guided by the four key themes (4 ‘I’s) of Impact, Inclusion, Innovation, and Investment.

The NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) is an important part of the NIHR infrastructure established to support research funded by the NIHR and others, and to enable the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. The RDN has a significant role in helping to address the NIHR’s areas of strategic focus (set out below).

The RDN launched in 2024 to bolster the UK's position as a key destination for health and care research delivery, enabling more people to take part in research, expanding research access to underserved communities and regions, and supporting the UK's life sciences industry. 

• The NIHR RDN supports the NIHR RDN Portfolio of clinical, public health, and social care studies across the whole study delivery pathway (i.e. from early planning stages, through set-up, recruitment and delivery, to close down) and in all health and care settings, including:

  1. 1. Hospitals - Secondary, tertiary, emergency or urgent care leading to hospital-based care

     2. Primary care - First point of contact for care for the general public

     3. Community-based- Community-based health and social care that is typically referral-dependent outside of hospitals

     4. Residential care - Care that is delivered in a short or long term residential or custodial setting.

• We cover the whole of England and consist of 12 Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDNs) and a Coordinating Centre (RDNCC), working together as one, with joint leadership.

• Our three primary purposes are:

  1. 1. Enabling research delivery across the country: connecting companies and researchers with delivery organisations in a diversity of settings, promoting effective and inclusive research delivery practice, bolstering delivery organisations’ capacity and capability through our Agile Research Delivery Teams, providing access to digital tools to aid participant identification, and helping to resolve issues that arise during delivery. 

     2. Investing in capacity and capability for delivering the NIHR RDN Portfolio: building capacity and capability for research delivery within the health and care system by providing funding, training and career development; and building communities of practice for research delivery and research ready communities with patients, service users, carers and the public. 

     3. Supporting the implementation of national policy: supporting DHSC, NHS England and the Health Research Authority to implement policies and guidance to streamline and improve health and care research delivery; and provide processes and tools to aid compliance whilst identifying and understanding enablers and barriers to success.

Our strategic plan for 2025 to 2030 has been developed after extensive collaboration with colleagues across the RDN and the wider research community.

The NIHR RDN Strategic Plan is designed to achieve key commitments within 5 years that will deliver on the NIHR’s strategic priorities: 

• Building on lessons from the COVID-19 response

• Strengthening preventative, public health, and social care research

• Improving care for people with multiple long-term conditions

• Expanding clinical research to under-served regions and communities

• Embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion

• Strengthening careers for research delivery staff

• Expanding collaboration with the life sciences industry.

In delivering our strategic plan, the NIHR RDN will play a vital role in supporting the government’s health and growth missions as set out in the Plan for Change, and delivering on the ‘3 shifts’ outlined in Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England moving from hospital to community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention. It will also support the delivery of the Life Sciences Sector Plan vision for the UK to be at the forefront of global innovation. 

Government and NIHR priorities and strategies are likely to change over the next five years. The NIHR RDN will continue to pivot its activities as required, and respond to the changing needs of the health and care research system we are here to support.

The NIHR RDN Performance and Operating Framework (POF) is intended to be a reference for all RDN staff. It comprises two main sections, the Performance and Impact Framework and the Operating Framework. Both sections have been developed with reference to the RDN Strategic Plan, and the work to create the RDN to date. Their contents have been collaboratively co-developed by RDN staff based within Regional RDNs (RRDNs) and the RDN Coordinating Centre (RDNCC) to enable the RDN to achieve its three purposes, and reflect the NIHR RDN's scope and ways of working. 

While both the Performance and Impact Framework and the Operating Framework sections will be change controlled and approved, the Operating Framework has been purposefully designed to be dynamic, enabling changes as required. Therefore please ensure you refer to the latest version. Changes will be recorded in the Change Log (accessible via the footer on this site) and will be notified via the The Bridge, RDN Digest and/or RDN Bulletin.