Most NHS clinicians never get to test their best ideas – these ones did

Dementia research has a workforce problem. The condition affects an estimated 900,000 people in England, a figure projected to rise sharply as the population ages. But the research pipeline is narrow. Most early-career researchers enter dementia studies through neuroscience or clinical medicine, leaving critical gaps in the disciplines needed to tackle the condition's wider consequences – its economic burden, its interaction with other long-term conditions, and the challenge of translating evidence into community-based care.

The questions that will shape dementia policy over the next decade are not purely biomedical. They concern health economics, data science, primary care, and social care. Answering them requires researchers who can work across those boundaries – and who understand dementia well enough to do so.

Our approach and partners

DEM-COMM was a national fellowship programme, funded through the NIHR ARC network, that brought together early-career researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and gave them three things: foundational knowledge in dementia research, a structured peer community, and resources to begin independent work.

The programme combined specialist training and mentorship with practical mechanisms for building research independence. Fellows formed special interest groups around shared methodological approaches, creating collaborative networks that cut across institutions. A competitive sandpit gave fellows seed funding to test ideas – small grants that could unlock access to datasets, pilot new methods, or kickstart projects that would later anchor fellowship applications.

What made DEM-COMM distinctive was the breadth of disciplines it drew together. A health economist, a pharmacoepidemiologist, a genetic epidemiologist, and a clinician with interests spanning biomarkers, multimorbidity, and AI all worked within the same community, sharing methods and perspectives that none would have encountered in a traditional dementia research group.

Partners included the Alzheimer's Society, the NIHR ARC network, and university collaborators including UCL, the University of Edinburgh, and Stanford University.

What we found – and why it matters

1. Fellows secured independent research funding. Joseph Kwon, a health economist, used his DEM-COMM fellowship to build the networks and pilot data that won him a four-year Alzheimer's Society fellowship, commencing in 2026. Seed funding from the programme's sandpit competition gave him access to the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, kickstarting independent dementia research. Ting Cai submitted fellowship applications to the Wellcome Trust, NIHR, and the School for Primary Care Research. Subhashisa Swain secured NIHR pre-application support funding and is preparing applications to the Alzheimer's Society and Arthritis UK.
2. The programme produced a substantial body of research. Padraig Dixon used Mendelian randomisation to study modifiable risk factors for dementia and the health economic consequences of Alzheimer's disease, publishing on hospital costs and quality of life in Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation. He also contributed to a Nature Communications paper on loneliness, social isolation, and health. Kwon published a systematic review of economic models of dementia diagnosis and has further papers on blood-based Alzheimer's diagnostics under peer review. Cai led a special interest group of 20 fellows focused on electronic health record data, producing collaborative work on applied dementia research methods.
3. Fellows brought new methods into dementia research. Swain's sandpit project applied large language models to medication review in dementia – work now producing three papers on AI validation in electronic health records, with intellectual property registration in progress and a feasibility trial planned. Dixon brought genetic epidemiology methods to bear on dementia health economics, an approach with few precedents in the field. Cai connected pharmacoepidemiology with dementia for the first time in her career, studying cardiovascular medication use in people living with the condition.
4. Research reached the public. Swain produced Life in Embrace, a documentary film about living with dementia, watched by more than 100 people across the UK. Swain also appeared on a dementia research podcast organised by UCL, presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto, and joined an international multimorbidity specialist group with the University of Edinburgh and Stanford University.

What this means

DEM-COMM demonstrated that building a research field requires more than training individuals – it requires building a community. The programme's special interest groups, sandpit competitions, and peer networks created connections between disciplines that do not naturally intersect. A health economist and a data scientist working on the same condition, within the same fellowship cohort, will ask each other questions that neither would encounter in their home departments. Those questions become collaborations, and those collaborations become the interdisciplinary research that dementia policy increasingly demands.

The fellows who came through DEM-COMM are now positioned to lead dementia research programmes of their own – and to do so with a breadth of perspective that reflects the condition's true complexity.

What needs to happen next

The DEM-COMM model worked because it combined community building with practical resources at the right career stage. But early-career dementia researchers still face a fragmented funding landscape and limited clinical-academic career pathways, particularly outside medicine. Sustaining the network that DEM-COMM created – and extending it to the next cohort – will require continued investment from NIHR and the Alzheimer's Society.

Funders should also note the sandpit model's outsized return. Small, competitive grants that give early-career researchers access to datasets and pilot funding can unlock fellowship applications and independent programmes at a fraction of the cost of traditional project grants.