Prioritising Health Research

In 2004, the James Lind Alliance (JLA) was established to enable the end users of health research – patients, carers and clinicians – to propose and agree on the most important topics in need of research. Since then, ‘Top Ten’ research priorities have been produced by over 100 Priority Setting Partnerships across a wide variety health conditions, care settings and populations. These priorities can influence funding decisions and have wider impacts such as relationship building between stakeholders.

A great deal of information from these Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) has been published, including methods, shortlisted research priorities and some raw data (e.g. original research questions proposed by people with lived experience and healthcare professionals). This information may provide useful opportunities for evaluation and further research into priority setting. This project seeks to map out and utilise published information from PSPs for the benefit of people with lived experience and their carers, health and social care professionals, researchers, funders and future PSPs.

Objectives and outputs

• Describe the nature of information published by PSPs, and the characteristics of health-related PSPs and Top 10s published to date (including mapping onto the UKCRC Health Research Classification System). These will be made available as an open-access, downloadable resource.
• Identify common themes which cut across UK PSPs in different areas of health care. Findings will be summarised in an open-access report, lay summary and tailored briefings for funders.

Project team

Joanna Crocker (Project Lead), Senior Researcher, Interdisciplinary Research In Health Sciences (IRIHS), Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, UK

Margaret Ogden, Lay Member, County Durham, UK

Lucy Moore, Health Services Researcher, Interdisciplinary Research In Health Sciences (IRIHS), Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, UK

Maaz Khan, Medical Student at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, UK

Project advisory group & PUBLIC Involvement

We are very grateful for the support of 12 advisory group members including: Gunilla Åhrén, Tootie Bueser, Sally Crowe, Benjamin Davies, Teresa Finlay, Toto Gronlund, Noemi Roy, Kristina Staley, Sanjay Thakrar and Ayath Ullah.

We would also like to thank those with lived experience as a patient, carer or service user whose contributions have shaped our analysis through workshops and conversations.

Funder

NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre

Contact information

For queries and further information please contact the lead researcher at joanna.crocker@phc.ox.ac.uk