Who's afraid of the health funders?
Published: 27 April 2022
One of our areas of focus in this theme is health inequalities. As social scientists, it can be tempting to think that as far as funding goes, it’s ESRC or nothing. But so much of our work touches on health and wellbeing: almost everything we research has the potential to influence outcomes for physical or mental health. Read more about how health funders could be relevant to your not-at-all-clinical work in this new blog post.
As social scientists, it can be tempting to think that as far as funding goes, it’s ESRC or nothing. But so much of our work touches on health and wellbeing: almost everything we research has the potential to influence outcomes for physical or mental health.
And yet many of us shy away from applying to “health” funders. Some of this reluctance may be down to lack of confidence – after all, if we’re not clinical researchers, how would we ever be taken seriously? But traditional “Health” funders like Wellcome, NIHR and the Medical Research Council are evolving. Of course, they still fund a large amount of clinical research and trials, but they are also increasingly open to work exploring how health and wellbeing intersect with factors such as housing, greenspace, arts, income, jobs, social inequalities, and travel (to name but a few).
Did you know for example, that in the past year alone, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has awarded grants on low traffic neighbourhoods in London, mental health needs of young migrant women, community pharmacies and homelessness, improving inter-agency collaboration, health impacts of Universal Credit, recruitment and retention of rural healthcare staff, and winter fuel payments.
Covid-19 has highlighted the important role that social science can play in understanding and mitigating the effects of even “communicable diseases” such as respiratory viruses, as well as non-communicable diseases such as obesity and addiction.
Increasingly too, funders are interested in questions around sustainable health behaviours, and how we can improve health outcomes while supporting national and international targets for climate change.
On 20 June, we will be organising a workshop specifically for social scientists who don’t identify as “health researchers” but whose work touches on the sorts of questions we’ve alluded to above. More and booking.
You might also be interested in attending a Wellcome webinar on their Early Career and Career Development Awards (10 May) or their Discovery Awards for more established researchers (16 May)
Finally, UKRI have recently announced a scheme focussing on community research consortia and health disparities. Please get in touch if that call is of interest.
First published: 27 April 2022