The UK Department of Health and Social Care’s aid-funded global health research and innovation
A review assessing the use of Official Development Assistance to fund research on global health.

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- Published: 16 Jul 2024
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- Published: 16 Jul 2024
Review
This review concludes that UK aid contributes positively to global health with results such as the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, but that more focus on achieving impact is needed.
Findings
- Global health research and innovation funded by the Department of Health and Social Care is largely relevant to the issues faced by poor people in low- and middle-income countries
- We also found it effective, with successes such as the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, a welcome focus to underfunded areas such as mental health and pioneering community engagement in many cases.
- DHSC’s programming aligns well with UK government strategies related to global health research, which prioritise economic and trade objectives alongside resilience to health threats such as pandemics.
- However, DHSC does not always focus on research which could drive the greatest impact, such as evidence synthesis.
- Transparency about programmes funded is patchy and reporting of results to ensure accountability for research impact is weak, considering the scale of the department’s official development assistance (ODA) spending.
- If DHSC’s aid is to be most effective, it needs to be ‘untied’, allowing researchers in low and middle-income countries to choose partners from anywhere in the world, not just the UK.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1: DHSC should focus on pathways to impact across its global health research portfolios, including by strengthening guidance for potential applicants and putting in place mechanisms for planning and measuring impact.
Recommendation 2: DHSC should ensure that its principle of equitable partnership is embedded and tracked across all areas of activity related to its global health research portfolios, including research funding, knowledge translation, learning, programme monitoring and evaluation.
Recommendation 3: DHSC should progressively untie its aid for global health research, to ensure value for money and to allow low- and middle-income country researchers to identify the most appropriate partners for their projects.
Recommendation 4: DHSC should purposively collaborate with FCDO to strengthen UK health ODA coherence and alignment to partner country needs and priorities.
Recommendation 5: DHSC and NIHR should take a more strategic approach towards institutional and system level capacity strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, and develop metrics to track plausible contributions in these areas.