WIREDGOV

An insight into one of NICE’s most long-standing collaborative relationships.

For nearly 20 years, NICE has worked with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to improve the evidence base for new interventions in health and social care. 

During this period, NIHR has invested £211 million on research that aims to address evidence gaps identified during the production of NICE guidance; a figure that continues to grow year-on-year. 

Rolling funding call  

A relatively recent outcome of this partnership has been a rolling funding call for studies addressing NICE research recommendations. The aim of this is to complement their programme of commissioned calls. The funding call gives researchers flexibility to apply for NIHR funding throughout the year - as and when they identify priorities arising from NICE guidance. 

To date, NIHR has received 80 applications and commissioned 16 studies across four research programmes so far, at a value of £29 million.  

A standout success of this rolling call is the Obstetric Bleeding Study UK (OBS UK) which was awarded the largest ever funding award from the Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme, £3.65 million. 

The research aimed to improve maternity care, which is a key priority especially for under-represented groups. The most common complication of childbirth is excessive bleeding which can have both physical and psychological impacts on the mother, birthing person and their family.

Dr Sarah Bell, chief investigator of the OBS UK Study recently said:

“The NIHR NICE rolling call provided a fantastic opportunity to apply for funding to investigate the impact of a complex intervention aimed at reducing excessive bleeding during childbirth in over 350,000 women and birthing people. 

“An advantage of the call was that it is advertised on a regular basis. This allowed the research team time to discuss the proposed study with NIHR and plan it in detail prior to submission." 

Apply and find out more 

If you are a researcher, and this opportunity sounds of interest, then NICE and the NIHR would like to hear from you. 

For more information on how to apply for the NICE-NIHR rolling funding call, visit the NIHR funding webpage.  

If you are aware of evidence gaps you can also make a suggestion for future NIHR research. 

More information about how NICE produces research recommendations, is available in process and methods guide. All of our research recommendations are also publicly available on the guidance webpages and the research recommendations database.