Collect once, use often

This year, HDR UK asked a subset of its members – including each of the National Priorities and NPIF (National Producitivy Investment Fund) fellows- to provide a range of information on work affiliated with HDR UK. With a tremendous effort from researchers across the UK, the end-result was a rich dataset with >200,000 datapoints spanning HDR UK’s research activities.  The data have since been explored and analysed by HDR UK’s data interns (Jake and Kabir).

Moving forward, the plan is to use and reuse these analyses often as part of HDR UK’s responsibility to demonstrate the value and impact of the research we support – to our funders and the public – including:

  • providing an evidence base for the impact of health data research on our website, and to better advocate for funding – 
  • connecting impacts and new developments across time – and also identify new potential avenues for use of HDR UK’s Innovation Gateway and Training Programmes
  • improving reporting for instance, as part of the Quinquennial Review (QQR)

Of note, these analyses have already fed into:

  • HDR UK’s draft QQR Funder’s Vision
  • National Priorities’ Blue Sky Visions
  • Impact case studies

And with HDR UK’s pending annual review, the list of where and how your ResearchFish data has been used will continue to grow.

The highlight reel

HDR UK wishes to applaud the community for their fantastic contributions thus far.  As evidenced from ResearchFish, researchers have demonstrated impact in advancing knowledge through high quality research, guiding policy, engaging a wide audience, and recognition beyond HDR UK*.

  • HDR UK publications have been cited >26 000 times – the most cited paper was Dexamethasone in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19 with >2 000 citations.
  • HDR UK publications are cited more than other publications in same field – fellows, for example, are cited nearly 6x more!
  • Nearly 90% of HDR UK publications are open access  and the majority  of software is open source.
  • HDR UK research has influenced policy both nationally and internationally, including membership of key advisory committees such as SAGE and the Welsh Government COVID19 Technical Advisory Group.
  • HDR UK researchers report 400 collaborations across >160 projects and multiple sectors – 28% of which are international.
  • HDR UK researchers engage most with practitioners, policymakers, public, and patient, carers, and/or patient groups.
  • HDR UK researchers have been recognised for their achievements more than 200 times through invitations as keynote speakers, honorary positions, research prizes, and more –including prestigious honours such as the NIHR Senior Investigator/Clinical Excellence Award, the Academy of Medical Sciences fellowship, and the L’Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science.

Until next year

HDR UK would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who collaborated on this year’s ResearchFish exercise – we appreciate your efforts and the valuable work you do.  Your research is making a real difference to patients. But impact doesn’t need only be sighted once a year! The HDR UK Impact Committee  shines a light on the most impactful research outputs and narratives from the National Prioritie each month – nominate your outputs for consideration.

*The ResearchFish extract was provided on 25th March 2021 and includes outputs reported by affiliated researchers from inception up to March 11th 2021. The raw extract was supplemented by extract information from Dimensions to get further information on the research output. National Priority data was extracted using the corresponding grant ID. The values cited in this blog are based on what the affiliated researchers inputted into Researchfish.