Partnerships with external organisations
We work with key external (including international) partners in academia, the NHS, industry, the not-for-profit sector, and the general public. The rationale is to benefit from complementary perspectives and expertise of partners capable of accelerating the impact and dissemination of our research findings.
Key projects
The eight-university NIHR School for Public Health Research was establishes in 2012 to increase the evidence base for effective public health action. The School has been renewed for a further five years to 2022.
We have established a strategic partnership with the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health in 2012, for which the two Universities have seed-funded collaborative research in dementia, obesity, big data, and food purchasing behaviour.
Other international partnerships have included those with the Public Health Foundation of India-UK and THRiVE (Training Health Researchers into Vocational Excellence in East Africa), both Wellcome Trust-funded capacity-building initiatives.
The Cambridge-Pfizer Centre in Cardiovascular Genomics, within the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, was established in 2011 with funding from Pfizer and the NIHR to accelerate medicines development by using genetic epidemiology to validate risk factors proposed as new therapeutic targets. It was featured in the 2012 “Strategy for UK Life Sciences” report of the government’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
In 2013, we expanded this approach in the Cambridge / Merck / Pfizer /Penn Medicines Development Initiative.
In 2012, €25 million of funding from European Commission Innovative Medicines Initiative established the European Medical Information Framework for translational studies of metabolic and other diseases.
We have multiple connections with the UK health service and many of our scientists are practicing GPs or clinically qualified. We also involve NHS and PHE staff in our teaching and training programmes. A recent joint project is the Centre for Population Donor Health, established in 2012 with £6 million of funding from the NHS Blood and Transplant to inform policy to secure the nation’s blood supply and protect the health and well-being of blood donors.
Our partnerships with the not-for-profit sector include strong links with RAND-Europe and the Public Health Genomics Foundation, which is a member of the Institute. The Public Health Genomics Foundation provides campus-wide input into issues relevant to the evaluation and implementation of evidence-based technologies in healthcare.
Through our Gilling’s Fellowships, we have established a partnership with the Institut Pasteur.
Joint appointments with external partners
To catalyse and deepen partnerships with external organisations, we have established a series of joint appointments, such as those with RAND-Europe (led by Professor Mary Dixon-woods) the Sanger Institute (led by Professor John Danesh) and the University of Peking (led by Pei Gao from January 2014).
