London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

These are the kinds of questions facing the NHS and social care, which will be informed by the work of a new research unit led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The Policy Research Unit in Policy Innovation Research (PIRU) was formed with partners at LSE and Imperial College London earlier this year with £4.5m funding over five years from the Department of Health’s Policy Research Programme. The Unit will provide advice and support in the early stages of policymaking to ensure that innovations are both capable of being evaluated and generate learning for policy development; thus helping to embed evidence-based decision-making by the Government. In some cases, the Unit may also carry out early-stage evaluation of policy proposals.

Speaking as the Unit is officially launched at the School, Nicholas Mays, Professor of Health Policy, says: “This is the first time a unit of this kind has been set up. It is unique because it involves early engagement between the Department of Health and our team to co-produce rigorous research evidence to inform the early stages of policy innovation. This approach should benefit patients by helping to link academic expertise with those who make the decisions from the start. We are not politicians and will remain independent at all times but we are looking forward to bringing our knowledge to health and care policy in this innovative way.”

PIRU joins one other new DH Policy Research Programme funded research initiative based at LSHTM: the Policy Research Unit in Commissioning and the Healthcare System, a collaboration with the University of Manchester. The Director of the ongoing DH Policy Research Programme funded Public Health Research Consortium is also based at LSHTM.