Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of regional allocation of health research funding; and what steps he is taking to address differences in funding per head.

The Department funds health and care research via its research operational arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), across England. The Department is committed to ensuring that research is inclusive and representative of the population geographically and demographically. Inclusion is one of the top four priorities for the NIHR, reported against publicly in the NIHR Annual Report.

From November 2024 the Department made inclusion a condition of NIHR funding for all domestic research awards. All applicants must demonstrate how their research will address existing inequalities, including place-based inequalities in health and social care, and researchers will be held to account for delivering on their plans.

The Department does not allocate research funding on a per-head population basis. Funding decisions are made through open competition and peer review to ensure support for the highest-quality research. The NIHR’s funding committees prioritise research that addresses the most important health and care evidence gaps, with strong potential for impact, and also consider scientific excellence and value for money.

The Department, through the NIHR, is taking action to ensure health research funding across England by targeting research in areas with significant health inequalities, encouraging applications from a wider geographical spread of institutions, and investing in research capacity in underserved regions. This includes establishing Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDC), Primary Care CRDCs, Health Determinants Research Collaborations, and support for new medical schools, alongside a Research Delivery Network (RDN) that operates across all regions in England. From April 2026, a new national RDN funding model for research delivery support aims to reduce regional variation in investment and expand opportunities to participate in research across all parts of the country.