The UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) is a partnership
of the main stakeholders who influence clinical research
across the business, public
... [Show More] and charitable sectors in the
UK. The aim of the UKCRC is to keep the UK a world leader
in clinical research. For partner organisations to be able to
effectively co-ordinate activities, accurate and timely evidence
is needed about health research supported across the UK. The
UKCRC Health Research Analysis Forum (HRAF) is comprised
of representatives from the twelve large public and charity
funders of health research, plus the Association of Medical
Research Charities (AMRC), who collectively are responsible for
periodically analysing the UK health research landscape.
This report is the fourth in the UK Health Research Analysis
reporting series; a UK-wide analysis of public and charity
funded health relevant research, produced by the HRAF since
2004, which provides the most detailed view so far of UK
research in this area. The Health Research Classification
System (HRCS) was used to categorise over 22,500 projects
supported by 146 funding organisations, corresponding to
almost £4bn of spend within the UK in 2018 (£2.5bn spent
directly on research projects and £1.4bn on infrastructure).
We also estimate a further £850m of health-relevant funding
from other sources not directly captured in the analysis, giving
a total public/charitable expenditure in 2018 of £4.8bn. This is
close to a separate estimate of the health-relevant proportion
of total R&D spend, totalling £8.6bn in 2018 (of which £4.3bn is
from the pharmaceutical private sector).
Analysis of this dataset shows that public funding for
health relevant research in the UK, both by taxation via the
Government or by donation via medical research charities,
has increased over the 14-year period. However, much of this
growth in this funding has occurred in the first five years of
reporting (2004-2009) with a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 8.5%, and subsequently much slower growth in total
funding in real terms between 2009 and 2018 (CAGR 1.7%).
In other words, health-relevant research in the UK has had ten
years of relatively level funding across the public and charity
sectors.
Examining the breadth of research activities undertaken by
projects, and comparing 2004 and 2018 data, there has been
a decrease in the proportion of total funding for underpinning
(-12%) and aetiological (-4%) research. These fundamental
discovery activities, predominantly funded through UK Research
and Innovation and medical charities, still account for half of
publicly supported health research and have received a real
term increase in funding of £490m since 2004.
As first noted in our 2014 report, there has been a noticeable
additional investment in research activities important for
translation, i.e. research that aids translating scientific
discoveries into new treatments and healthcare benefits.
Research on detection and diagnosis, treatment development
and treatment evaluation have received an increasing
proportion of total health research spend (+10%) between
2004 and 2018 resulting in a real term increase of £548m
over 14 years. Similarly, and in part due to the evidence
provided by previous reports in this series, prevention research
has also received an increased proportion of total health
research expenditure (+3.4%, real term increase of £120m
since 2004). The funding for the earlier stages of translational
activity is shared across funders, however the majority of
clinically-relevant research topics (e.g. treatment evaluation,
disease management and health services) are supported by
Government departments and clinical professional bodies,
predominantly the Department of Health and Social Care via the
National Institute for Health Research.
Assessment of the proportion of overall spend by health
category shows relatively stable funding for many diseases
or conditions, with a quarter of expenditure on research of a
generic health relevance (i.e. applicable to all conditions or
without a specific disease focus) and almost a fifth on cancer
research. The largest growth has been in the area of infections
research (+4.5% since 2004), a steady upward trend across
the 14-year reporting period as funders begin to address the
challenges of antimicrobial resistance.
The geographical distribution of health relevant research
funding remains remarkably stable between 2004 and 2018,
with less than 1.9% variances across the 12 regions of the
UK. [Show Less]