improving the health and wealth of the nation through research

NIHR Senior Investigators' Conference: 24 September 2008

The inaugural conference for the National Institute for Health Research College of Senior Investigators took place on 24 September.

NIHR Senior Investigators (SIs) are the most outstanding leaders of applied people and patient based health and social care research in England. The first 100 Senior Investigators were appointed in March 2008, 70 of whom attended the conference.

Professor Dame Sally C. Davies, Director General of Research and Development at the Department of Health opened the conference by welcoming the delegates and explaining that the conference would allow the SIs to network with their colleagues, learn more about the wide ranging work of the NIHR, act as ambassadors for the NIHR and enable them to advise her, on what is going well and what can be improved.

Sally Davies referred to the £15 billion investment in medical research the Prime Minister announced during his speech at the Labour Party Conference. This is a determination to focus on turning breakthroughs in research into treatments from which all can benefit. Read More.

The changing research landscape

The second session set the international context for the NIHR with presentations from two of the world's foremost research funders.

Dr Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada, President of the Global Health Program, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a world leader in health research congratulated all present on the establishment of the NIHR. In a wide ranging and personal presentation, Dr Yamada explained how just as a doctor has to be a scientist in order to understand new treatments, so research is fundamental to healthcare and how, just as challenges for health increasingly are global, research must also become global in service to society.

Dr Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust then commended the NIHR and the opportunities it is creating for supporting research and researchers, including in clinical academic careers. Emphasising that world class research is the only type of research worth supporting, Dr Walport went on to highlight new findings in genetics as an example of collaboration between disciplines, which needed more than ever to support this research.

NIHR - Transforming health research

In the afternoon, a session on the NIHR Faculty began with presentations on NIHR and the new health research system. This included a video address from Dr Elias Zerhouni, Director of the US National Institutes of Health, which highlighted how as knowledge and understanding gained from research increases, so must our ability to act on it. Dr Zerhouni emphasised the importance of NIHR in helping close this gap by developing clinical and applied research, and through supporting the next generation of researchers.

Journalist Nick Ross then questioned Sally Davies about why the NIHR had been established and why the NIHR was essential to ensuring research funds would only support quality research. Nick Ross led the Senior Investigators in questioning Sally Davies across a wide range of issues. These included governance and bureaucracy: bottom up versus top down research priorities; the added value of NIHR to multidisciplinary research and to public involvement and on how the health research system will evolve and the developing criteria for determining success.

Enablers and obstacles

In the final session, the Senior Investigators discussed enablers and obstacles to clinical research, focusing on incentives and NHS league tables, public involvement, research networks, training and development, governance and HEFCE's Research Excellence Framework and Research Assessment Exercise.

Sally Davies closed the conference by thanking the first Senior Investigators for their work and advice through the day, and for their obvious and growing enthusiasm for the NIHR.

Conference pictures