How the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network supports and enables social care research
At the NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN), we know that outstanding care and high-quality research are intrinsically linked. For care providers, research can support the workforce, refine daily practices and directly improve the lives of people who draw on social care support . The NIHR RDN enables the social care system to attract, optimise and conduct high-quality research that is inclusive and accessible to all. In this update, we share impact stories and case studies from the NIHR RDN that demonstrate how we can support the social care sector.
Regardless of where you are in your research journey, we encourage you to get in touch with us to find out how we can support social care providers to attract, optimise, and deliver research.
NIHR develops West Midlands Social Care Research Partnership to bring research closer to frontline care
The new West Midlands Social Care Research Partnership brings together academic institutions, local authorities, and the frontline workforce to help join up social care research in the region. This collaboration has developed a sustainable social care research pipeline, meaning more social care studies happening in the future and bringing the benefits of research to frontline social care services.
The problem: a fragmented research landscape
Following the pandemic, there was a significant appetite for social care research across the West Midlands. However, a major capacity and skills gap existed because the region lacked a centralised hub to connect academic institutions, local councils and the frontline workforce.
Top-tier research capacity was siloed, strategic funding bids were developed in isolation, and frontline practitioners faced complex structural barriers when trying to engage with the NIHR. This fragmentation prevented organisations from working together to provide research .
Collaboration across the system
To bridge these gaps, the NIHR RDN facilitated the launch of the West Midlands Social Care Research Partnership to bring together:
● frontline social care professionals
● NIHR infrastructure colleagues and performance and impact teams to align research with social care services
● The West Midlands Association of Directors of Adult Social Care Services (WM ADASS) and the Birmingham Voluntary Service Council
● regional academic partners
Impact
This work shifted the regional culture from passive interest to working together to achieve results, including:
● Funding: supported teams to pool their resources and collectively bid for strategic funding, minimising unhelpful competition and supporting collaboration
● Developing the workforce: provided information about opportunities to develop skills, including the Researcher Development Programme, which supports early career development into research, and internship schemes. It also integrated systemic toolkits to support getting research directly to practitioners.
● Regional and national influence: the region has integrated social care into the broader research infrastructure via regional representation at national NIHR forums
The Benefits
Frontline social care professionals and nurses benefited through access to professional development pathways, toolkits, and seminars, resulting in new applications for nurse social care internship roles, for example for nurses working in local authorities.
Local authorities and academic leaders benefited from increased research capacity and reduced complexity. A new strategic infrastructure bid is building a dedicated “signposting” facilitation hub to strip away friction for future NIHR engagement. This will create easier points of contact to access NIHR support and facilitate more research happening in local authority social care services.
If these projects are implemented regionally and nationally, the national health and care system will benefit from evidence-based social care practices that improve services and reduce friction between sectors working together – e.g. between local authorities and independent providers.
The contribution of NIHR infrastructure funding
NIHR funding was critical for this transformation. It provided the necessary resources to establish the operational governance, funding to link practitioners with research teams and provide the opportunity for unified regional leadership.
The partnership has produced a booklet to share learning From Practice To Evidence – Embedding research at the heart of adult social care improvement.
The PREACH project: prioritising research with older adult care homes
The Prioritising Research through Engagement with older Adult Care Homes (PREACH) project involved working with older adult care homes to prioritise what research studies should examine.
The project drew on the Virtual International Care Homes Trials Archive, which brings together data from multiple studies about care models and health conditions from over 6,000 residents. Despite this wealth of information, research topics do not always reflect the priorities of care home residents, their families or staff.
This project identified what key stakeholders consider most important to learn from research. The team received almost 2000 ideas from over 1000 participants. Many suggested research topics related to supporting residents to live well, including:
1) Residents’ activities (22% of suggestions). Sixty-nine different activities were mentioned. The top were exercising more, socialising, and getting outside. Also important was the sense of community in and outside of the home, and adapting activities for diverse resident needs.
2) Mental wellbeing and quality of life was discussed in 394 (20%) of responses. What “quality of life” meant for people varied, but major concerns related to communication and connections with others and maintaining independence. Understanding dementia was also raised.
3) Residents, care home staff and family members all spoke about the process of moving into a care home. This included understanding what care home life is like before residents move in and having more information (e.g. printed booklets) to help adjust to living in a care home.
This process also provided an opportunity to actively engage with care home networks and generate research ideas grounded in lived experience.
Further information is available here
North London forum brings researchers and care sector workers together
The first North London Wider Care Research Forum was hosted in June 2026 by the RDN in North London and NHS research support organisation Noclor.
The forum brought together care sector workers, Skills for Care staff and researchers to foster collaboration, increase research awareness and highlight research and funding opportunities.
By creating a structured space for engagement, the event grew connections between the research community and wider care providers. Attendees collaborated on ways to transform research in wider care settings.
Dr Arti Sharma, research team leader for engagement in wider care settings for the RDN in North London said: “The energy at the first forum was absolutely incredible. By bringing frontline care professionals and researchers into the same room, we have broken down traditional barriers. We are ensuring that those who provide care are the ones helping to shape the future of health and care research.
”This is a great step forward for our goal to increase the amount of research taking place in wider care settings.”
