Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: UKRI digital health hubs

The aim of this investment is to drive innovation in digital health by promoting knowledge and skills sharing across healthcare, academia and business.

EPSRC and UKRI have invested in five digital health hubs that will drive the development of innovative digital technologies for healthcare.

Budget:: £16.5m
Duration:: This is a single programme running from 2023 to 2026
Partners involved:: Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC), Art and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Innovate UK, Medical Research Council (MRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

The scope and what we're doing

This area of investment is part of the UKRI strategic themes securing better health ageing and wellbeing and tackling infections.

The funding is for knowledge and skills hubs, which focus on:

increasing skills and capacity in the development of digital health and care solutions across academic disciplines, healthcare and industry
allowing co-creation of solutions with users across healthcare such as patients, carers and clinicians
enabling the accelerated translation of digital technologies into the healthcare space and rapid commercialisation of emerging digital technologies
building new partnerships between industry, healthcare, social care, users of digital technologies and academia
increasing the sharing of knowledge between industry, healthcare and academia
providing a mechanism for fostering leadership in digital health and care

Each hub provides a mechanism for building and sharing knowledge and skills between businesses (small and medium-sized enterprises and larger) across academic disciplines and with the health and care system. This could be through:

vocational training
continuing professional development courses
secondments
workshops
seminars

Healthcare challenges

The hubs will focus on five key healthcare challenges:

antimicrobial resistance
health and care outside hospital and disease prediction, diagnosis and intervention
tackling health inequalities by developing digital healthcare technologies to the point of use in the NHS
addressing the unmet health needs of underserved communities, and digital exclusion
developing digital technologies such as symptom tracking apps or wearable devices to improve health

The hubs

The hubs will provide an environment to network and collaborate, provide training and other skill-sharing initiatives and have funding available for pilot studies in digital health and care.

The five hubs are:

Digital Health Hub for Antimicrobial Resistance, led by Professor Rachel McKendry, University College London
The South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub, led by Professor Tim Chico, the University of Sheffield
Northern Health Futures (North Futures) Hub, led by Professor Abigail Durrant, Newcastle University
King’s Health Partner (KHP) Digital Health Hub, led by Professor Sebastien Ourselin, King’s College London
The Leadership Engagement Acceleration and Partnership (LEAP) Digital Health Hub Partnership, led by Professor Ian Craddock, University of Bristol

Past projects, outcomes and impact

Find out more on Grants on the Web about the funded hubs.

Who to contact

Ask a question about this area of investment

Katherine Freeman (Senior Portfolio Manager)

Email: katherine.freeman@epsrc.ukri.org

Include ‘Digital Health Hubs’ in the subject line.

We aim to respond within five working days.

Zuzana Hlaskova (Portfolio Manager)

Email: zuzana.hlaskova@epsrc.ukri.org

Include ‘Digital Health Hubs’ in the subject line.

We aim to respond within five working days.

Contact a digital health hub

Digital Health Hub for Antimicrobial Resistance, University College London

Northern Health Futures (North Futures) Hub, Newcastle University

Jennifer Wood, Hub Manager

Email: jennifer.wood@newcastle.ac.uk

The South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub, the University of Sheffield

Email: sydhh@sheffield.ac.uk

Last updated: 9 November 2023