Health Informatics Research Centres – Securing the UK as a world leader

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Four Health Informatics Research Centres (HIRCs) were funded at a total budget of £17.5m over 5 years.

The objectives of the centres are to:

  • undertake high quality, cutting-edge research linking electronic health records and health-related data with other forms of research and routinely collected data in safe data environments;
  • build capacity in health informatics research.

The HIRCS, based at UCL London, Manchester, Swansea and Dundee involve a total of 19 UK universities and 2 MRC Units.

To add value to the HIRCs and support health informatics research in the UK more widely, a further £1.5m was allocated by the funders’ consortium1 to fund a UK health informatics research network. The objectives of the Network are to:

  •  harness expertise in the wider UK research community
  •  develop methodologies
  •  share best practice
  • provide a central route for collaborating with industry, the NHS and policy
  • engage with the public to promote the benefits of using health records in research.

“Strengthening the UK’s capability in health informatics” conference, May 2013

The Health Informatics Research Centres were officially launched in May 2013 at the “Strengthening the UK’s capability in health informatics” conference held at the Royal College of General Practitioners. The aim of the meeting was to share views on state of the the current research landscape and look at the research challenges for UK health informatics. The latter was designed to inform the development of a research strategy for the new UK Health Informatics Research Network.

There were over two hundred attendees including IT and pharmaceutical industries, academics and professional societies, health professionals, research funding organisations and the media.

A summary of the proceedings can be viewed in the report along with copies of the presentations.

Further information available at: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/initiatives/health-and-biomedical-informatics/initiatives-in-informatics-research/