HRA strategy: you said, we did

We heard from and engaged with lots of people in many different ways in the development of our strategy. This included through events, surveys and workshops as well as direct involvement in producing the final product. Thank you to everyone who took part. This helped us to understand what matters most to our different stakeholders and make informed decisions about how we can work most effectively to deliver our services and make change happen over the next three years.

Our strategy sets outcomes that we are going to work to achieve over the next three years. How we achieve them will be informed by the feedback that you gave us.

We've set out some of the key themes that we heard and how these informed our strategy.

Continue to include and accelerate

Our previous strategy was framed around two key pillars setting out what we are working to change in the world:

• include – so that health and social care research is done with and for everyone
  
• accelerate – so that research findings can improve care faster because the UK is the easiest place in the world to do research that people can trust

Taken together, these enable us to make it easier to do research that people can trust – our mission. You told us that these activities should remain at the heart of our work, but we should better reflect how these are interconnected. You can’t accelerate without including and vice versa.

We were interested to understand more so we held a workshop in March 2025 focused on how to support growth in life sciences in a way that people can trust. You told us strongly that it was important to maintain a balance between the two and that we have an opportunity to champion growth with and for everyone.

You also wanted to see the breadth of our work reflected in our strategy – noting that the 1,000 volunteers and public contributors and up to 300 staff who enable us to play our part in reviewing approximately 4000 research studies and 8,500 amendments a year, provide approvals and work to set standards and continually improve the way we work should be visible.

Our new strategy sets three strategic objectives, which build on ‘include’ and ‘accelerate’ and four drivers – simple, fast, trusted, effective – that will help us to achieve these. You can see the importance of doing research with and for everyone and the need to make it simple and fast to do this well weaved together to achieve our goals. The services that we provide and the people who make them a reality are set out front and centre in the way that we do this.

show us the change you are making

You valued the ambitions that we set out in our last strategy, but you wanted us to be clearer on our level of ambition. You wanted to know what success looks like and in doing so understand where you will see the biggest change and where change may be more gradual. You also wanted to hear more about our progress along the way.

Our new strategy sets SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) outcomes that we are working towards over the next three years for each area of our work. We will report on these publicly as we take this forward.

We have also set out where you will see the biggest transformation, as well as where you will see us change or maintain and continuously improve. These decisions over where to focus were guided by where we can make impactful change fastest to achieve our strategic objectives. Our engagement with many different stakeholders helped us to identify these areas.

Keep your focus on making it faster to do research in the UK

You told us that the speed of being able to earn approvals and set up research is crucial to making the UK an attractive place to do research, which benefits all of us.

The UK government has set a target to reduce the time it takes to set up a clinical trial to 150 days by March 2026.

Our key role in encouraging and facilitating close alignment with other parts of the research approvals system is already reducing the time to do research, by reducing duplication and streamlining processes. For example, our technical assurances on radiation and pharmacy prevent duplication of work at every location where research will take place. Our combined review with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reduces the time it takes for a clinical trial to be set up in the UK

You told us that speed of approvals is really important, but even more important is ensuring that there is a smooth path through the approvals and set up of research. You didn’t see value in speeding through one part of the process while you were hitting a red light in another (as many processes are happening in parallel). So our new strategy sets out to maintain and increase the speed of the system that we have direct control over – approval timelines – but also work in partnership to transform the end-to-end pathway of setting up research so the whole process becomes easier and faster. We will do this by:

• making it faster and easier to use our digital services to plan, approve, set up, manage and complete research in the UK
  
• working in partnership UK-wide to provide a world-class regulatory system that reduces the burden, time, and cost to do research with and for everyone
  
• providing approvals in time to support the set-up of clinical trials in 150 days
  
• taking a proportionate approach to regulation without reducing standards

Quicker, easier, faster, digital services

All researchers use the HRA’s digital services to plan approve, set-up, manage and complete research in the UK. You told us how important these services are, but you also told us that they need to be quicker, easier and faster to use. You saw opportunities to simplify and rationalise the process, including sharing information and reducing duplication in the system. You also saw the potential of more intuitive guidance prompting researchers find out about and follow best practice. Our volunteers wanted easier systems to use in their role with us and our staff saw the potential of digitisation to support them in their roles.

We are making significant investment in our digital services and our digital foundations. We are developing new services to better support the end-to-end research journey, connecting all of the processes for health and social care research in the UK. The new services will be user-centred, making it faster and easier to start research by streamlining research approvals, reducing inconsistencies and duplication in study set-up and delivery, and lowering the burden on NHS research and development departments. They will also improve research transparency by making better research information public.

Building the foundations of our new digital services is the priority and focus of our next three years. This includes We will also continue to growing our digital maturity so that we can build our new digital services and operate effectively as a secure digital organisation. In the past year we have improved our cyber security, developed more robust, reliable and simpler to maintain digital infrastructure, updated and enhanced our digital tools and improved our service delivery management.

We will:

• make it faster and easier to use our new digital services to plan, approve, set up, manage and complete research in the UK. We will reduce the burden on users by improving end-to-end flow and replacing manual processes. We will deliver three core platform services by 2027
  
• ensure that our digital services are secure. We will maintain and increase the security of our digital services, keeping them available and resilient to cyber attacks and meeting government assurance standards
  
• develop safe, scalable and secure digital infrastructure. We will build safe, scalable and secure digital infrastructure and the internal capability to expand, innovate and support future regulatory change
  
• use AI well. We will use AI and digital technologies well and find ways to use them more to improve the way we work and our services in a way that people can trust

Widen participation in research

We know that increasing the diversity of people taking part in research is important to the UK public

Nearly all adults (88%) believe it’s important for health and social care research studies to include a diverse mix of participants, even if it means higher costs (70%) or longer durations (74%).

Including a diverse group of people in research provides a better understanding of how different conditions might affect different groups of people, and the most effective treatment, device and care and how they are experienced. This information can ensure people get the best healthcare for them and so reduce health inequalities.

Your feedback confirmed that this is a really important area where the HRA can make a difference, particularly ensuring that populations who are not currently taking part in research are able and confident to do so.

We are already working closely with MHRA to pilot guidance to support researchers to do to develop an inclusion and diversity plan and Research Ethics Committees to review their approach. Our strategy sets out to continue to learn from and build on this work, coordinating effectively with other activity underway to give researchers consistent expectations and support across the research pathway.

We will:

• support greater representation in, and access to, research so that people from all backgrounds across the UK can take part in research relevant to them. This will be shown by an increase in the proportion of researchers who use an inclusion and diversity plan and are more confident to include a diverse group of people in their research.

Embedding meaningful and impactful public involvement

Public involvement has been at the heart of the HRA since we were established. The Academy of Medical Sciences report that shaped us stated the importance of “strong leadership and expertise” which “must include public and patient involvement to enable the interests of the lay public to be reflected as well as those of the research community.”

Our last strategy set out to increase public involvement in research and increase public involvement in us.

We have established a Community Committee, which places the voices of our volunteers and public at the heart of our governance, advising our Board. We have also co-created the Shared Committee to Public Involvement in Health and Social Care Research with NIHR. This brings together health and social care research organisations that are committed to involving the public in health and social care research and in their work.

We expect to see public involvement in the applications that our research ethics committees review. This year we established annual monitoring of rates of public involvement in the applications that we receive. We are working with our ethics committee members, research sponsors and the wider shared commitment partners to better understand the barriers to public involvement and make change happen.

We know that increasing public involvement in research is at the heart of doing research in a people-centred way, supporting more people to be confident and able to take part. And you told us throughout the development of this strategy how important it is that we continue to encourage and support meaningful and impactful public involvement in research. The UK government’s 10 year health plan for England sets an ambition for the UK to be “a world leader in clinical trials and patient involvement in research."

Informed by this, in our strategy we have committed to continuing to build on the strong foundations we have established to:

• ensure that more research meaningfully involves the public to inform the way it is done shown by an increase in rates of public involvement in applications for review by a research ethics committee.:

Recognise our people

A lot of the feedback focused on the people at the heart of the HRA. Our people includes our almost 300 staff and the almost 1000 volunteers and public contributors who sit on our research ethics committees, the confidentiality advisory group and get involved in our work.

You wanted to see us taking action, to ensure that everyone has a good experience volunteering and working with us and is supported well. You noted that our operation rests on the goodwill and dedication of many volunteers and we must recognise this and show them the difference that they are making.

You also noted the importance of ensuring that the people who work and volunteer with the HRA are diverse, bringing lots of different perspectives to inform the decisions that we make so that everyone can trust us.

You wanted more opportunities for training and support, and more visibility of your roles with us.

Which is why this strategy puts our people at its heart, making them prominent and visible in the way that we work. It recognises that our people are what make us and that every one of our staff, volunteers and public contributors plays an important role in ensuring that the HRA can make it easier to do research that people can trust.

We have set out our ambition to ensure that our people can be their best and made commitments to:

• ensure that our staff have a high level of engagement, maintaining and growing our high level of staff engagement to 80% and maintain our strive measure at 85%
  
• ensure that our Community of volunteers and public contributors have a good experience with us and can see the difference they make, maintaining satisfaction at or above 80%

Many of you gave us detailed feedback on what would be valuable to improve your experiences and how to engage and build on your insights when taking action to improve the research system. We will use this to inform the work we take forward.

Increase research transparency

The HRA has a duty to promote research transparency and you told us how important it is to continue pushing for all health and social care research to be transparent.

Transparency about what research is going on, and what its findings are, is important for patients, service users and the public. It builds trust and accountability, acknowledges their contribution and encourages participation in research. It’s also essential for research and care professionals. It leads to improvements and avoids duplication of effort. It enables findings to be used to develop new and better treatments for patients and service users, and to identify the best ways for us to stay healthy and well. It also helps improve the quality of research.

We expect sponsors to register their clinical trial and publish results of their studies 12 months after the end of the study. We also expect them to feedback to participants.

During the development of this strategy, the UK’s clinical trial regulations were updated to strengthen this expectation on clinical trials of investigative medicinal products (CTIMPs). From April 2026 it will now be a legal requirement to:

• register these clinical trials in a public registry
• publish a summary of trial results within 12 months of completion
• share a summary of results with participants in a format they can easily understand

We publicly report on compliance with our expectation to register clinical trials annually. This was at 92% for trials approved in 2023. We worked with our Make it Public Group to shape how we will continue to work to increase research transparency over the next three years.

They told us that it is important to keep pushing for all clinical trials to be registered. This is really important for transparency, ensuring that people can find out about research underway. They also told us that even more valuable is sharing the findings, increasing the opportunity for others to learn from them and reducing waste because researchers do not need to repeat studies where the answer is already known. The Make it Public Group encouraged us to build on the success of publishing compliance monitoring of registration and expand this to reporting of results to encourage more researchers to do this.

Informed by this, over the next three years we have committed to establishing compliance monitoring of reporting results. We will:

• make research more transparent with 100% registration of clinical trials and an increase in clinical trials uploading summary of results on a registry.

Going forward, our new digital services will increase our capabilities to encourage and support researchers to be transparent and monitor their compliance.

Support the use of digital, data and AI technologies in research in a way that people can trust

The government has set out an ambitious strategy for the UK to ‘shape the AI revolution’. This includes some specific recommendations for regulators to scale up their AI capabilities and enable innovation and growth driven by AI in their sector.

A lot of you had AI on your mind. You were excited about its huge potential but also cautious. You wanted us to provide more clarity on how AI may be used safely and ethically in research.

Your concerns included transparency, bias and potential harm from AI-based health research. You were also concerned over how people’s data can be used ethically and safely. Several of you pointed to the potential of technology such as the NHS App to support people to better understand how their data is being used and control this. At the heart of your feedback was the importance of trust and transparency.

Informed by your feedback and our work to date as part of the AI and Digital Regulatory Service, we have made two commitments around AI in our strategy. These focus on both how we will use AI to work more effectively ourselves, but also how we will work across the sector to ensure people can have confidence in the way AI is used.

Within, or in the planning of research and when it is the subject of research. Doing so with public trust is at the heart of both of these. We will:

• use AI and digital technologies well and find ways to use them more to improve the way we work and our services in a way that people can trust
  
• be clear how we support researchers to use new technologies and data to plan and do research, and to research the use of new approaches and technologies in care, in line with the AI opportunities plan

Make it easier to do social care

The HRA’s remit includes health and adult social care research. We have a specialist social care research ethics committee and a number of our committees also have expertise in reviewing social care research. It is important that social care researchers can find out what they need to do and earn the approvals they need to do their research.

In the feedback we received as we started developing our new strategy, we heard calls for greater visibility of the HRA’s adult social care remit. You told us that we could play a greater role in supporting social care researchers and you saw potential in us doing so.

Informed by this, we went out and spoke to social care researchers and others working in this space to better understand what may be needed. They told us that we will likely see an increasing number of social care research studies over the coming next three years and that we have a role to play in ensuring social care research can earn the necessary approvals from suitably expert and experienced committees. They also saw huge potential in new approaches to linking social care data with social data in a way that people can trust. However, while there is significant additional funding for social care research, much of this is at an early stage. We are also waiting for the outcome of the Casey commission on adult social care, and other changes over the longer term from the 10 year health plan that are relevant to social care and the way social care works alongside healthcare.

Informed by these conversations, in our strategy we have set out to align with work underway, ensuring that we keep pace with this. In future we will be able to review whether and how we can play a more transformative role in enabling adult social care research. In this three-year strategy, we have committed to:

• work with others so that social care researchers can find out what they need to do to and access support available to them to earn approvals

We will also ensure there is the necessary capacity and capability within approvals services to keep pace with any growth in social care research applications.

Make it easier to do public health research that people can trust

Public health research focuses on investigating and addressing health-related issues and concerns at the population level. As such it has a key role to play in preventing diseases, promoting health equity, and enhancing the overall quality of life for individuals and communities – all of which will be important to achieve the UK government’s ambitions for health.

Public health researchers need support to find out what they need to do and earn the approvals to do their research. Work is underway across the health and social care research system to support public health research. In the development of this strategy, we heard that clear guidance and signposting to relevant organisations and resources will help reduce confusion and enhance the research environment for public health.

In our strategy we are setting out to:

• ensure our processes are aligned with wider work to help public health researchers find out what they need to do and earn these approvals

Work internationally

This was a strong theme of the feedback that we received. You told us that it is important to make the UK an attractive place for international organisations to do research.

The UK government’s ambition is "that the UK will, by 2030, be the leading Life Sciences economy in Europe; and by 2035, the third most important Life Sciences economy globally, after the US and China.”

You also told us that we should engage internationally, sharing our learning and learning from others to avoid repeating learning so that we can be a world-class destination to do research and support high standards of research worldwide. You also wanted more information on how the UK is performing to see how this compares with other countries.

We met with multiple stakeholders and held a workshop in January 2025 to inform our approach. The workshop identified three areas of work that are important for the HRA to consider:

• engage with international partners to make it easier to collaborate with UK researchers and do research that people can trust in the UK
  
• develop resources that demonstrate how we make it easier to do research that people can trust that are suitable for global audiences. (noting that we may not be the ones promoting these to global audiences)
  
• learn openly – so that our approaches and experiences inform others and we are open to learning from them.

Informed by this, we have made two commitments in our strategy that will shape our work in this space going forward:

• ensure that our policies and practices support international collaboration with UK researchers, and enable the UK to be a global partner in promoting safe and ethical research
  
• provide information and resources to support wider work to demonstrate the attractiveness of the UK.

Work with others

We regularly receive enquiries about opportunities to partner or collaborate with work led by others, as well as direct requests for support. Developing our new strategy gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we can approach these consistently, making sure that we are using our resources well.

We held a workshop in February 2024 to gather wider views on whether and how we should partner, collaborate and respond to requests for support. This discussion strongly supported us being open to partnerships and collaborations and providing support to others if this would help us to achieve our mission. It began to identify criteria that the HRA should consider in making these decisions.

As part of the public sector, it is important for the HRA to always ensure that we are using public funds well, including taking opportunities to share services with other public sector bodies and align where appropriate.

Informed by this, in our strategy we have set out to:

• partner and collaborate and share services where this will help us deliver our mission and reduce costs

Make research more sustainable

The sustainability of research was a strong theme in the feedback we received. Many of you noted the considerable environmental impact of research, particularly singling out the environmental impact of AI research. You wanted us to play a role in encouraging more sustainable research practices.

There is an active sector-wide conversation about sustainability in research, including recent conferences held by the Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences. We are part of these discussions.

A lot of the work that we do to streamline the process of doing research and encourage research transparency already support sustainability – see this blog by my colleague Sarah for more.

As change in this space is underway sector-wide, our conversations with different stakeholders suggested that there are other areas where we can have a bigger impact. Over the next three years we will continue to engage and align with others to support this agenda. We will:

• ensure that our policy and guidance are aligned with action to promote and support sustainability in research.

Be more visible

This was a strong theme in the feedback that we received and so we held a workshop to discuss it further on 14 March.

You wanted to see more of us. You told us that we have a role to play in building trust in research, so that more people are confident to choose to take part in research relevant to them.

You also told us that greater visibility could also help us work more effectively across the system, with other organisations to really make a step change in the time it takes to do research.

But you were clear that we could not be everywhere. There are places where the HRA may need to be visible and there are places where we need to provide information and work seamlessly with others who are more visible.

Recognising this, our strategy sets out to build the profile that we need to achieve our objectives well. This is one of four areas that you will see us transform over the next three years. We’ve set out two SMART outcomes to help monitor our progress:

• people can understand, value and trust us and the way that we work. sentiment analysis shows an increase in awareness and trust in the HRA across all stakeholders that need us
  
• our assurances are understood, valued and trusted, not unnecessarily repeated to set-up research with a 20% reduction in the percentage of people who tell us that there is duplication in study set up.

Make the biggest difference

As a public body, we always look to provide the best value to the public purse. As we have been developing this strategy, the government has set out ambitions to:

• reduce the administrative budgets of government departments by 15% by the end of the decade as set out in the Spring statement 2025
   
• cut administrative costs for business by 25% by the end of the Parliament

We held a workshop in March to better understand how we can ensure that every penny spent on research can have the biggest impact possible.

You told us to be proportionate, taking a more risk-based approach in the way that we regulate. You also told us to lead – influencing researchers to get it right first time, and you told us just how important it is to make it easier to set up research in the UK. But you also had mixed views on what would work.

In this strategy, we are setting out to get the data. We will develop better ways to measure our own efficiency and productivity. We will also develop ways to measure the impact that our work has on the efficiency and productivity of the wider health and social care research system and public finances. This will help us identify which interventions will have the greatest impact and focus on these to really transform researcher’s experiences and help improve care faster.

We have committed to:

• play our part in meeting the commitment for government departments to reduce their administrative budgets by 15% by the end of the decade Spring statement 2025
  
• measure and report on the impact of our work on the productivity and efficiency of the health and social care research system