Project Duration: April 2024 – September 2025
Lead partner, RAND Europe: Agnė Ulytė and Jon Sussex
Lead BCU Researcher: Erez Yerushalmi
Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
Background
In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the largest public funder of health and care research. Its investment supports research in health, public health, and social care, aiming to improve patient outcomes, enhance public health, and make the health and social care system more efficient, effective, and safe. NIHR collaborates closely with stakeholders across the sector to address key challenges and respond to evolving research needs. Its work helps translate discoveries into new or improved treatments, diagnostics, medical technologies, and services.
Publicly funded research in the health and care sector not only improves population health and care experiences but also drives economic growth. It creates jobs, increases income, and encourages commercial organizations to expand their research activities.
To evaluate the economic impact of NIHR’s investments at both regional and national levels, our lead partner, RAND Europe, has been awarded funding to conduct an in-depth assessment.
Project aims and Objectives
The aim of this study is to assess various NIHR activity and funding on health and social care research. The key objectives are to:
- Describe NIHR-funded activities by type, over time, across regions in the UK.
- Conduct case studies of NIHR-funded activities.
- Estimate short- and long-term return on NIHR investment in the period 2013/14 and 2017/18, nationally and in separate regions, using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling.
- Synthesise the results into overall insights into the economic effects regionally and nationally of NIHR-funded activities.
Birmingham City University's role:
We are developing an UK economy-wide multi-region multi-sector Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to evaluate the economic impact of NIHR-funded activities across different regions and industries. This model will provide a comprehensive analysis of how NIHR’s investments influence the broader UK economy.
Outcomes
The Department of Health and Social Care invests around £1.6 billion each year in health and care research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). This study examined how that spending benefits the UK economy and how benefits spread between regions.
NIHR funding supports research jobs, purchases goods and services, and creates further economic activity when workers and suppliers spend their income. It can also encourage private companies to invest more in research. Four examples of NIHR-funded research showed benefits for researchers, the NHS, companies, communities and patients.
Using official regional statistics and an economic model, we estimated that every £100 spent through the NIHR generates about £145 for the UK economy within 5-10 years. The credible range is £137 to £173. Roughly one-third of the economic benefit occurs in the region where the money is spent, while two-thirds spreads to other UK regions.
These findings show that NIHR research spending improves health and supports jobs, incomes and economic growth across the country. The estimates may be higher over a longer period. Further work could add the economic benefits of healthier, more productive people, which were not included in this economic model, and could strengthen future estimates.
See the FULL REPORT or through here.
See our relevant Health Economics research with CGE modelling
- Internalizing social value in Healthcare: Optimal policy in mixed-public private systems.
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- The economic implications of physical inactivity.
- Potential Socio-economic impacts of antimicrobial resistance in Canda.
- See additional here.