Goal 1
Create a thriving health research environment
Creating a vibrant and future-ready environment and research workforce for health and social care
Research and researchers need the right conditions in order to succeed. The HRB will lead the development and implementation of a dynamic health research and data ecosystem across the island of Ireland. We will achieve this by investing in people, skills, systems and governance, and catalysing support for infrastructure.
We will build and support a strong research workforce to meet national, global and future health and social care needs by:
- Supporting the next generation of applied health and social care researchers, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and inter-professional approaches
- Collaborating with the Health Service Executive (HSE), higher education institutions, professional training bodies and others to develop and support frameworks for a clinical academic workforce that provides opportunities for health and social care professionals at all stages of their careers to combine research training and practice
- Investing in capacity and capability building in critical areas such as biostatistics, behavioural science, implementation science, research methodology, evidence synthesis, and supporting future skills linked to digital transformation.
We will promote and enable access to research platforms and infrastructures that will enable and enhance health and social care research and innovation by:
Leveraging our considerable experience to identify critical gaps and to influence larger public funders and government agencies to invest in sustainable research infrastructure and services
Supporting the advancement and building awareness of a national Health Data Access Body (under the European Health Data Space) which will enable secure access, linkage and use of health data for research and innovation purposes
Working with the Department of Health, Department of Further and Higher Education, Research Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) and other agencies across the island of Ireland to advance a harmonised approach to biobanking that maximises public benefit, protects donors, enables responsible access and ensures long-term sustainability
Promoting the establishment of and use of a European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) node in Ireland, in order to provide researchers with an open and trusted multidisciplinary environment where they can publish, find and reuse data, tools and services for research and innovation.
We will drive excellence in our health research funding policies and practices and support a healthy research and innovation culture by:
Embedding responsible research assessment practices that promote excellence, integrity and a healthy research and innovation culture, and share our work in this area
Supporting FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles and driving open access and open data through collaboration and alignment with national and international partners
Employing research processes and technological systems that are modern, efficient and reduce administrative burden and waste
Working with national and international partners to influence, implement and evaluate evolving research policy agendas, such as research security and the responsible use of AI in science
Delivering a robust evaluation programme that provides evidence on the outputs, outcomes and impacts of our work.
We will support research conducted in Ireland to be ethical, safeguarded, and in the best interest of research participants and the public by:
Enabling research conducted in the public interest through implementation of regulation and data protection safeguards via the Health Research Consent Declaration Committee (HRCDC) supported by the Secretariat
Supporting the National Research Ethics Committees (NRECs) to deliver robust national research ethics opinions for clinical research on medicines, medical devices and diagnostics, underpinned by diverse and wide-ranging expertise and experiential knowledge
Developing agile procedures to respond to health emergencies and emerging threats, and supporting the NRECs and HRCDC to deliver accelerated national decisions on ethics and consent, in accordance with national and international guidelines
Developing trusted, expert-driven, national best practice guidance on ethics, consent and regulations that support researchers to conduct safe and ethical research
Ensuring transparency of the work of the HRCDC and NRECs which uphold the highest standards of research ethics, governance and data protection safeguards in the best interest of research participants and the public
Promoting the necessity of patient and public involvement (PPI) in research ethics, consent safeguards and health research more broadly, through engagement with national organisations and PPI members of the HRCDC and NRECs.