News

We are delighted to launch our research costing tool, designed to support local authorities in calculating the costs of research projects/activities and in preparing funding applications. In addition to helping users calculate the total costs of their research, it offers practical guidance on key factors to consider when completing research funding applications. The research costing tool will be tested over a 6-month period before launching the final version. 

Do you find it difficult to understand how to involve people in your research or organisation? 

Do you want to know how to you can ensure diversity and inclusion in your research or organisation?   

If so, our advice session may be for you. You don't have to have a specific proposal or project in mind. 

We are delighted to confirm we offered 29 local authorities and partners our public and community partnerships funding award. Funded projects will explore new or improved ways that local authorities can involve people and communities in public health research conducted outside the NHS.  

We are delighted to confirm we offered funding to an additional 8 Public Health Engagement Leads (PHELs) in our January 2026 funding call.  

PHELs work across a number of local authorities reflecting local networks and collaborations. 

Each member of our Public and Community Partnerships (PCP) Advisory Board has an allocated annual personal development award. The award can be used to develop their personal public health research interests and skills through a number of routes, this could be protecting time to attend webinars or training, or visiting organisations to experience their PCP activity. 

Since December, we have moved forward with our scoping activity to identify the needs for public health research outside the NHS. Our scoping survey was launched earlier this month and is being targeted to a range of audiences involved in public health research outside the NHS.

On Thursday 29 January, we delivered a webinar on research with LGBTQ+ community, in partnership with Diversity Trust, and a public contributor with lived experience.

We are delighted to confirm that in our final Local Authority Research Practitioner (LARP) funding call we have offered funding for 14 LARPs.

One of our key objectives is to give local authorities the resource they need to build skills and find opportunities for public health research. This enables a move towards a culture of public health decision-making informed by research.

We are delighted to share the research governance and ethics resources repository, designed to support local authorities in establishing and maintaining research governance processes.

At SCPH, we are committed to making sure everything we do is accessible, inclusive and fair. To support this vision, in December 2025, we established a RI working group. 

This year, NIHR is celebrating their 20th anniversary, marking 2 decades of supporting health and care research. Over the past 20 years, NIHR have helped turn research into better care, new treatments and real change for people across the UK and beyond. They have also made a significant investment into public health, with the Specialist Centre for Public Health being funded from 1 October 2023. 

Are you in the early stages of planning public health research and thinking about how to engage and involve local people and communities? 

Book a slot at one of our informal monthly drop-ins with Tracey Johns, Public and Community Partnerships Research Adviser and a member of our Public and Community Partnerships Advisory Board. 

In September 2025 we launched a two-year pilot programme, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, to strengthen research delivery support for public health research outside the NHS.  

Since we launched the pilot 3 months ago, we've engaged with stakeholders, made appointments to the team, and are planning scoping activity in early 2026.

If you are wondering how to meaningfully connect and collaborate with your neighbouring LARPs or HDRC, we can guarantee that you are not the first, or the only person, to be pondering this question. Since so much of the remit, even job titles, of LARPs and HDRCs are identical, it is easy to think that finding ways to work together toward shared goals should be simple.

In January 2024, Westmorland and Furness Council were awarded Local Authority Research Practitioner (LARP) funding. And in January 2024 Cumberland Council were awarded funding to establish Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) Cumberland. 

On Wednesday 3 December, our Local Authority Research Practitioners (LARPs), their Line Managers, and our Public Health Engagement Leads (PHELs) met for the LARP Network winter event in London. The day focused on promoting curiosity and networking with over 90 LARPs, PHELs and LARP Line Managers in attendance.  

These webinars will be useful for anyone working in local authorities, or a voluntary sector organisation, working in public health or social care, who is interested in, or begun to apply for a Predoctoral Award, Doctoral Award or Postdoctoral Award.

Over the last 18 months, we have had over 70 conversations with 61 local authorities about research governance and ethics. In the conversations we discussed existing processes, future plans, challenges, and gaps. This led to a list of potential projects and a projects prioritisation exercise with local authorities.

In May, we asked local authority colleagues to help us prioritise which projects we should focus on to support local authority research governance and ethics. We received 84 responses. 

Thank you to all the local authority colleagues and others who have shared their experience and examples of frameworks, policies, processes and templates with us, as well as everyone who completed the survey to help us prioritise this important work. 

The NIHR Academy, together with the NIHR RSS Specialist Centre for Public Health and the NIHR RSS Specialist Centre for Social Care is hosting a series of bitesize webinars to offer information, advice and support for individuals who are considering applying for a NIHR Personal Award - Predoctoral Award, Doctoral Award or Postdoctoral Award.

It has been an incredibly exciting 2 years since we launched the Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by Newcastle University and Partners.

Our second birthday is a perfect opportunity to share our impact across our growing remit, along with a reminder that all of our work is underpinned by public and community partnerships and research inclusion. 

We are inviting research active professionals working in community care, public health, social care, care homes, or hospices to join the Research & Development Forum (RDF) Wider Care Settings (WCS) Group. Our aim is to embed research across all care sectors, not just within the NHS.

We are launching a two-year pilot programme, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, to strengthen research delivery support for public health research outside the NHS. 

This pilot addresses a gap in the current research landscape by supporting studies that fall outside the remit of the NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN).