NIHR’s economic return at the regional and national level

BACKGROUND
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) aims to create a health research system in which the NHS supports leading-edge research focused on the needs of patients and the public. Under its mission to “improve the health and wealth of the nation through research”, it encompasses a wide range of funded activities.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The aim is to evaluate the economic impact of NIHR-funded activities and their return on investment at regional and national levels within the UK, capturing all activities and the full range of economic effects, and providing insights into the distribution of funding by region and type. Project objectives correspond to those specified by NIHR:

METHODS
A mixed-methods study that includes (1) economic modelling, at regional and national levels, to quantify the benefits that NIHR investment in one region has had on the economy and health gain, not only in that region but also in the rest of the UK; (2) four, largely qualitative, case studies.

Within the overall large project, Dr Erez Yerushalmi will focus on modelling and estimating the return on investment of NIHR funding using quantitative models at the national and regional levels, mainly applied Input-Output (I-O) modelling and a regional UK Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model.