About us

DECIDE launched in July 2023. Focused on technology-enabled remote monitoring in health and social care, our evaluations ask the key questions about relevant, priority interventions. Our approach is rapid, robust and rigorous with the aim of producing timely, theoretically and methodologically sound as well as practical and actionable evidence that can rapidly inform policy and practice. We are committed to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in evaluations of technologies , and in the development, adoption and use of technology-enabled health and social care. 

Meet the team

Sara Shaw, Director of DECIDE
Sara Shaw is an experienced health services researcher and academic, leading a programme of work on technology-enabled health and social care. She has a background in sociology and has published widely on the organisation and delivery of health and care. She has a particular interest in the development, adoption, spread, scale up and sustainability of technology and innovation and ensuring that multiple voices – including patients, practitioners and policy - are heard in this process. She is Professor of Health Policy & Practice at the University of Oxford where she co-directs an interdisciplinary research group. She is Senior Fellow at Green Templeton College, and a member of the MRC Better Research Better Methods and NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research panels.

Chrysanthi Papoutsi, Deputy Director of DECIDE

Sonja Marjanovic, DECIDE Lead for RAND Europe
Dr Sonja Marjanovic is Director of RAND Europe’s portfolio of research in the field of healthcare innovation, industry and policy. Her work provides decision makers with evidence and insights to support innovation and improvement in healthcare systems, and to support the translation of innovation into societal benefits for healthcare services and population health. Previously, Marjanovic led RAND Europe's institutional partnership with The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at Cambridge University. She is also a member of the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, an expert advisor to the NHS England and NHS Improvement cancer programme, a Trustee of the Nuffield Trust and on the advisory board for the Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research (CHIR) as City, University of London. Sonja has over fifteen years of experience working on research and policy challenges for clients that span public, health industry and third sector decisionmakers and in connecting the experiences and perspectives of diverse stakeholders around key healthcare agendas.

Frances Wu, Deputy Lead for RAND
Dr Frances Wu is a mixed methods researcher interested in health services delivery and in particular how organisational context, both within and across organisations, can impact the provision and outcomes of care. Prior to RAND Europe, Frances worked at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge on various studies including an assessment of remote secondary care services for people living with COPD and consensus building to improve the implementation of NICE guidelines in end-of-life care planning. As an embedded researcher, Frances has conducted research and evaluation within healthcare delivery organisations in the US including Kaiser Permanente and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, leading quantitative work seeking to evaluate and understand the implementation of care innovations and models of care such as the patient centred medical home.