The NIHR funds local collaborations to support applied health research and research on implementation of health and care evidence into day-to-day practice.
The NIHR invests significantly in people, centres of excellence, collaborations, services and facilities to support health and care research in England. Collectively these form the NIHR infrastructure.
Our infrastructure funding provides a platform to enable research in England, acting as a targeted and strategic investment to create an environment where early-phase, clinical and applied research can thrive.
Our research infrastructure facilitates the translation of discoveries into improved treatments and services for the benefit of patients and the NHS.
The 13 NIHR Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs) are local partnerships between NHS providers, universities, charities, local authorities, Academic Health Science Networks and other organisations.
Since January 2014, the NIHR has invested £144.8 million over five years into these collaborations to accelerate implementation of health and care evidence into day-to-day practice.
The CLAHRCs undertake applied health research to tackle local health and care needs in their region, with an emphasis is on chronic disease and public health interventions.
They also have a key role in bridging the second translational gap by investigating how effective interventions can be implemented in their region, creating and embedding approaches that are specifically designed to take account of the way that healthcare is delivered locally.
The CLAHRCs are each hosted by an NHS Trust and cover a specified region of England, bringing together all the practitioners and organisations in an area who conduct applied health research with all those who use it in practice across a regional health community.
The CLAHRCs each have a number of research themes decided on the basis of the local needs in their region and the expertise among their collaborators.
Our 13 CLAHRCs are:
In July 2019, the NIHR announced a £135 million investment in 15 new NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs), to support applied health and care research that responds to, and meets, the needs of local populations and local health and care systems.
The funding will also support, facilitate and increase the rate at which research findings are implemented into practice.
The scheme aims to improve outcomes for patients and the public; improve the quality, delivery and efficiency of health and care services; and increase the sustainability of the health and care system both locally and nationally.
The new ARCs will tackle a number of areas of need highlighted by the NIHR Futures of Health report, including: the challenges of an ageing society; multimorbidity; and the increasing demands placed on our health and care system.
The new scheme also aims to deliver a step change in national-level impact through significant collaboration between the new ARCs, and through NIHR ARCs providing national leadership within their fields of expertise.
The 15 new ARCs are:
You can work our collaborations in applied health research
