Research Guidance & Useful Links

All recipients of NIHR Imperial BRC funding are subject to the NIHR IP and Revenue Sharing Policy.

In brief:

Prior written consent is needed from NIHR before making any commercial use or permitting any third party to make commercial use of NIHR funded IP, know-how or research data.

NIHR will require a revenue share of any benefits (revenue and equity) arising from such commercial use according to the terms of their IP policy

NIHR guidance can be found here

Impact Stories give DHSC and NIHR sight of the value that the research it funds brings to the health and wealth of the nation, including achievements in and progress towards improving patient outcomes, reducing health inequalities, serving the health needs of under-served communities and building national capacity and capability to conduct high quality health and social care research.

They help DHSC and NIHR to:

• demonstrate this value to our stakeholders, for example, government ministers and departments, the health and care system and patients and the public;
• evaluate and evidence the impact of the research we fund; and
• inform decision-making about our funding processes and priorities.

For NIHR, research impact is about making a meaningful, demonstrable difference to people’s lives through the research we fund and support. This includes benefits for patients and the public, improvements to health and care, and wider societal and economic impacts, where change can be evidenced through clear effects or outcomes

Impact Story Template and Guidance 2025-2026

How to write an Impact Story

So what???

1st sentence : Set out the scale of the problem. How many people affected. Cost
2nd sentence : What needs to happen to solve the problem
3rd sentence : What did you do, what did you discover
4th sentence : What do your findings mean for patients, the public, health and care system, UK businesses. Include cost savings to the NHS/economy if relevant

Tips:

• Avoid jargon and acronyms
• Don’t include information about publications
• Plain English
• Don’t overstate and be open about any limitations or caveats – accuracy is key
• Ministers will assume NIHR funded research is good quality – you don’t need to go into detail on methodology
• It is not: introduction, methodology, results, conclusions
• Read it out loud before you submit

On 27 Nov 2024, NIHR officially launched a new requirement that all applicants demonstrate how their research will address existing inequalities in health and social care as a condition of funding.

NIHR has released guidance on this new condition, Research Inclusion.

Read more here.

The NIHR guidance for reporting public and patient involvement (PPI) in publications can be found here.

The NIHR Imperial BRC PPIE Strategy 2022-2027 can be found here

To know more about involving people and communities in cancer research, follow this link.

To know more about organisations supporting patient involvement, follow this link.

The Imperial BRC EDI Strategy 2022-2027 can be found here.

The EDI Toolkit has been developed to support researchers and research advisers to better understand how to embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in research design and to meet the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Inclusion requirements.

The  Research Support Service (RSS), which replaces the RDS, offers free and confidential advice on the development of funding applications and throughout the research pathway. Follow the link to the NIHR RSS page.

Support for research costing.

Support for planning a funding application.

The network offers colleagues from all BRCs an opportunity to collaborate informally, on a national scale. More details can be found here.

This project, published by The George Institute for Global Health’s Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity (MESSAGE) project, in partnership with Imperial. aims to improve the integration of sex and gender considerations across data collection, analysis and reporting in biomedical, health and care research in the UK.

This initiative is bringing together stakeholders from across the UK to co-design a sex and gender policy framework for funding and regulatory organisations and supporting policy implementation across the UK research sector.

MESSAGE Policy Framework.

Professor Robyn Norton, Founding Director of The George Institute, Emeritus Professor of Global Health at Imperial and co-principal investigator of the MESSAGE project, said, “The UK has one of the largest female health gaps globally, and many of these inequities stem from the earliest stages of medical research. By integrating sex and gender considerations into funding proposals, researchers will now be expected to design and conduct their research in a more equitable and scientifically robust manner.”

The policy framework was co-designed with representatives from across the UK research sector, including research funders, regulators, researchers, academic journals, patients, clinicians and government officials.

Recent research finds unprofessional behaviour such as rudeness or bullying may become embedded in the workplace when staff are disempowered, teams lack cohesion and managers are unaware of the behaviour. This could then impact staff wellbeing negatively contributing to mental and physical health problems among staff, affecting patient safety and compromising the quality of patient care.

Unprofessional behaviour was most likely to be directed at staff who are female, new, disabled or from minority groups.

Improving working conditions and encouraging staff collaboration could help to eliminate unprofessional behaviour in healthcare.

The NIHR has a dedicated page on this topic- What drives unprofessional behaviour in healthcare?

Current NIHR funding opportunities.