Area of investment and support

Area of investment and support: UK prevention research partnership

The aim of this programme is to support and fund research into the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases. The vision is to generate new insights into actionable, sustainable and cost-effective preventions that will improve population health and reduce health inequalities in the UK.

Partners involved:: Medical Research Council (MRC)

The scope and what we're doing

An alliance of research funders has agreed to commit over £50 million to support research into the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The vision is to generate new insights into actionable, sustainable and cost-effective ways of preventing NCDs, to improve population health and reduce UK health inequalities. The research will address the upstream determinants of NCDs and be produced with policymakers, practitioners, health providers, the third sector and the public.

The UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) is a new model of public health funding in the UK that seeks to:

build and support interdisciplinary research teams to develop, implement and evaluate preventive NCD policies, practices, designs and interventions, which can be generalised, scaleable, and transformative within complex systems
deliver solutions for large-scale and cost-effective improvements in health and the prevention of NCDs that meet provider and policymaker needs, and are responsive to policymaking timescales.

UKPRP aims to align closely with the aspirations described in the Academy of Medical Sciences report: improving the health of the public by 2040.

Find information about the partnership on the UKPRP website.

Why we're doing it

The UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) follows on from the National Prevention Research Initiative (NPRI).

NPRI was a national initiative made up of government departments, research councils and major medical charities that worked together to encourage and support research into chronic disease prevention. Its core aim was to develop and implement successful, cost-effective interventions that reduced people’s risk of developing major diseases by influencing their health behaviours.

See the NPRI final report on initiative outcomes and future approaches.