NIHR HSDR Programme Workforce Research Partnerships

Funding for multidisciplinary partnerships for research on key priority areas in the organisation, delivery and development of the UK health and social care workforce.

Established in 2006 and primarily funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds health and care research in the UK.

The NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme Workforce Research Partnerships call (23/68) seeks to fund up to three multidisciplinary partnerships to co-produce and conduct research on diverse aspects of the UK health and social care workforce. These partnerships will conduct high-quality, national research projects on key priority areas in the organisation, delivery and development of workforce. The aim is also to build capacity and capability in workforce research and share data, learning and skills at a national level.

Workforce is a critical area for health and social care with 1 in 8 nurse posts and 1 in 10 social/care worker posts unfilled. Workforce has been identified as the largest internal threat to the sustainability of the NHS. The HSDR programme has previously funded studies on workforce that have influenced policy and practice. Around a quarter to a third of HSDR-funded research studies have a core focus on workforce.

Research partnerships will reach into both health and social care services, although some partnerships may have greater focus on one or other sector, to develop and test innovations to inform workforce planning and deployment. This research will draw on the expressed needs of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) and on knowledge bases outside traditional health and care research, such as human resources, labour economics, work and wellbeing, management science, organisational psychology, and employment.

The scheme is interested in all staff groups in the health and care systems and all organisations across the different sectors including both clinical and non-clinical health and social care staff groups, and across all stages of career from apprenticeship through to older and experienced staff. There is a particular interest in research that will benefit staff who are less often the focus of workforce research, such as allied health professionals, support staff, and administration and operations staff.

The likely outputs of the partnerships are audience appropriate products such as a variety of digital formats (eg podcast, video, social media etc) along with a communications strategy to ensure that the relevant audiences are aware of the products.

Applications are invited from partnerships with broad knowledge, interest and expertise in workforce, in either one or both sectors of health and social care. Over the initial 18 months, teams will be asked to work with NIHR and with NHS and social care stakeholders to scope a workplan of research studies that play to each partnership team’s particular interests and strengths. This workplan will have followed detailed scoping and engagement with national and local stakeholders to identify important areas of uncertainty, gaps and workforce innovations, and will have produced detailed plans for conducting high-quality, national research.