NIHR Research Delivery Network

Information

The NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. Working in partnership with the NHS, universities, local government, other research funders, patients and the public - we fund, enable and deliver world-leading health and social care research that improves people's health and wellbeing and promotes economic growth.

The NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) supports the country’s world-class research system to deliver high quality research that enables the best care for our population. The RDN operates as one organisation across England, through a network of 12 Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDNs) and a central Coordinating Centre (RDNCC).

The RDN is supporting studies to be effectively delivered across the system and building strategic capacity and capability in a different way. Examples of how this is happening include:

A new Scoping nLocations for Research tool which has been created to boost transparency and speed up the process of selecting research locations across the whole of the UK. This self-service tool combines RDN research activity data with local prevalence. It helps sponsors, their delegates and researchers take a data-driven approach to quickly scoping potential locations for research. This proof-of-concept will be further expanded to include population demographics to support visibility of participant diversity.

A refined Sponsor Engagement Tool for studies on the NIHR RDN Portfolio which enables users to have improved visibility, oversight and control of the data the RDN holds on the sponsor organisation’s portfolio of studies. Engagement with the tool and ensuring the data the RDN-holds is up-to-date, supports users of RDN data (including DHSC and NHS England) with data-driven decision making.

NIHR also hosts the following services to encourage people to take part in research:

Be Part of ResearchBe Part of Research is a digital service which helps people to find and take part in a wide range of health and social care research, taking place at locations across the UK. Our new Be Part of Research volunteer registry makes it easy for researchers and potential study participants to find each other. It’s the first UK-wide registry for all health and care specialties - providing researchers with free and easy access to over 580,000 research-ready volunteers from every corner of the UK.

We can:

Help you recruit more quickly and effectively from a growing database of volunteers
Identify volunteers through a wide range of demographic data
Work with a wide range of research studies from surveys to clinical trials - taking place at local hospitals, GP surgeries, community settings or from home

Find out more about how Be Part of Research can accelerate recruitment to your study at:www.bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/researchers

Join Dementia Research

Join Dementia Research is an online and telephone service which enables people to register their interest in participating in dementia research and be matched to suitable studies.The service is run by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) in partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer Scotland and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).The Join Dementia Research platform can help researchers: