Corporate report

UKHSA Advisory Board: Science and Research Committee minutes

Updated 12 March 2024

Date: 13 March 2024

Sponsor: Jon Friedland

1. Recommendation

The Advisory Board is asked to note the minutes of 8 November meeting of the Science and Research Committee. The minutes were agreed on 6 February 2024.

2. Minutes (confirmed), Science and Research Committee, 8 November 2023

Present at the meeting were:

• Jon Friedland – Non-Executive Member of UKHSA Advisory Board (Chair)

• Lucy Chappell – Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser, DHSC

• Jennifer Dixon – Non-Executive member

• Graham Hart – Non-Executive member

• Susan Hopkins – Chief Medical Advisor

• Raj Long – Associate Non-Executive Member

• Isabel Oliver – Director General, Science and Research

• Steven Riley – Director General, Data, Analytics and Surveillance

In attendance:

Four attendees had their name and title redacted.

Apologies:

• John Arne-Røttingen – International Impact Expert - Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway

3. Welcome, apologies and declarations of interest

23/146 The Chair welcomed participants to the Science and Research Committee and noted apologies.

23/147 John Arne-Røttingen had been appointed as Chief Executive Officer at the Wellcome Trust and would be stepping down from the committee.

23/148 There were no further declarations of interest.

4. Minutes of the previous meeting and matters arising

23/149 The minutes of the previous meeting of 4 September 2023 (enclosure SRC/23/024) were agreed.

23/150 The committee noted the actions report (enclosure SRC/23/025).

23/151 (Information redacted in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000).

5. Director General Science and Research Report

23/152 A paper (enclosure SRC/22/026) was presented by Director General, Science and Research. The paper provided an update on Science and Research activities in UKHSA and highlighted achievements and other issues since the last Advisory Board. The paper also provided a forward look of activities.

23/153 The opportunities for science and research continued to be significant for UKHSA but were challenging to make happen. Links and relationships were being built but these did not always come to fruition.

23/154 UKHSA received a visit on 28 September 2023 from Sarah Viehbeck, Chief Science Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada. She was leading the development of their first Science strategy and wanted to learn more about UKHSA’s science strategy. There was a follow up meeting arranged for 9 November 2023. Sarah Viehbeck would succeed Patrick Vallance as Chair of 100 Days Mission. This would be an important relationship going forward.

23/155 There was a meeting planned for 9 November 2023 with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (‘MHRA’). They had not yet published their Science Strategy but their Board had encouraged close links with UKHSA. MHRA and UKHSA would be defining how their partnership would work and a joint paper would be provided for both respective boards. The focus would be on science and research in areas such as vaccines, diagnostics, data, analytics and toxicology.

23/156 The greatest opportunities were around the role of public sector research establishments (PSRE).

23/157 An AI taskforce was working through the initial issues for UKHSA and a paper was being produced for the Advisory Board. AI could potentially affect almost every area of UKHSA.

23/158 The committee discussed links with other arms’ length bodies and artificial intelligence development. It was confirmed Canada was working closely with USA. There were potentially opportunities to leverage this to extend funding, although it was acknowledged there may be restrictions on the funding leaving the country.

23/159 The Committee discussed the mapping review of pandemic non-pharmaceutical interventions (‘NPIs’) and further work to be done to synthesise the evidence. It was noted the UKHSA mapping review did not duplicate the review from the Royal Society and that UKHSA was working with the Royal Society to ensure future work was complementary.

23/160 The committee discussed NPIs and how and when they should be started in the event of a future pandemic. It was noted that interventions were context dependent and that the UK Government’s Health and Care Research Framework for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was considering research into NPIs (also known as behavioural, social and cultural interventions) as part of the framework. This framework had been led from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and has had input from multiple government departments and funding agencies, with UKHSA providing information on research gaps for the framework to consider. It was agreed that the risks of any research gaps to UKHSA would be documented and reported back to the Science and Research Committee.

23/161 The committee noted that UKHSA would be best placed to identify emerging research needs and priorities considering the evidence base. (Action: Isabel Oliver)

23/162 The committee discussed UKHSA’s role in shaping the advisory structure to those making decisions. A joint review of scientific committees that were relevant to UKHSA and DHSC was being undertaken by the Chief Medical Officer’s office, DHSC Chief Scientific Advisor and UKHSA. The Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser, DHSC had assumed responsibility for the health protection funding team at DHSC, including Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs). It was a priority to ensure evidence from HPRUs was made available across government.

23/163 The committee noted the update on the HPRU funding competition and were supportive of putting in place longer term infrastructure for HPRUs and PSREs which were central to the general research effort. 

23/164 It was also noted that Go Science would be undertaking a review of UKHSA as a PSRE. The Director General, Science and Research would share this information with the committee.

23/165 The committee commented that the Science Celebration Event should be extended throughout the UK. (Action: Isabel Oliver)

23/166 The committee thanked the Director General, Science and Research for the report and confirmed the approach taken for the report was suitable going forward.

6. Research income, partnerships and funding landscape

23/167 The Director General, Science and Research and Deputy Director Research Management and Knowledge presented a paper (enclosure SRC/23/020) which described the mechanisms of research funding in UKHSA, the level of research grant income, key research partnerships, and relationship with research funders.

23/168 The committee’s view was UKHSA could improve its share of funding and the main reasons for the current situation were:

• there were opportunities for UKHSA to better leverage its research partnerships and collaborations

• the culture did emphasise the need to obtain grants

23/169 The committee recommended UKHSA improving its representation on grant giving bodies and improved training.

23/170 It was clarified that the focus of the paper was obtaining grants beyond the HPRU framework. It was acknowledged that HPRUs were an important addition and would add around 50% to the total value (£58m currently, £77m in the next cycle). However, this remained a small fraction of UKHSA’s total income.

23/171 Infrastructure was needed in the organisation to allow people to apply for grants. UKHSA’s infrastructure was not arranged like an academic centre and was focused on recouping research costs and hiring people rapidly to do the work. For those that were recruited, it was recommended that there should be academic promotion assessments on staff so their position broadly corresponded to their equivalent academic position. UKHSA should also consider promotions by academic achievement instead of just through a managerial lens.

23/172 It was recommended that UKHSA’s strategy should:

• move away from small projects which did not generate a lot on income to programmes of research, and to establish partnerships with consortia in a number of areas – there was a disproportional cost to managing small grants internally

• focus its efforts on targeting larger grants (it was pointed out that Innovative Health Solutions had a total of $2.4b euros in grants to spend over 3 to 5 years – this had already attracted the interest of other ALBs, and there was a need for a robust external facing business strategy; however, some existing big grant providers may be open to a programmatic approach)

• look at ways to free up the time of colleagues who could be applying for grants and that the culture should be accepting that not all grant applications would succeed – there would be an initial need to focus on submission rather than outcome when the number of grants applied for was ramped up (Action: Name redacted)

23/173 The committee discussed the cultural challenges which included:

• the need to systematically identify research needs and priorities

• colleagues not routinely sharing data and waiting for it to be requested

• internal systems were administrative rather than being generative or supportive

23/174 The committee thanked the Deputy Director Research Management and Knowledge for the update.

7. Health Effects of Climate Change

23/175 The Director General, Science and Research presented a paper which outlined UKHSA’s approach and brought together up to date evidence to inform polices and actions to secure health in response to climate change. The committee were thanked for their comments on the draft paper.

23/176 There was a commitment for UKHSA to do this as part of the National Adaptation Plan and the report would be published in early December 2023. The full report was over 800 pages.

23/177 Work had started on the Health Effects of Climate Change report prior to the establishment of UKHSA and has involved around 90 academics. The report comprises 15 thematic chapters each looking at a different hazard related to climate change. Each summarises the current state of the evidence.

23/178 A summary has been added to the start of each report to highlight the key points and highlight the research and scientific needs. The report does not include policy recommendations but instead brings together the evidence base and identified areas for further development. The next step is to work with a range of partners to ensure all the evidence was taken into consideration to inform policy and actions.

23/179 The key messages of the report are:

• there is now a substantial evidence base and the potential impacts of climate change are significant and wide-ranging

• there are significant inequalities associated with climate change and the potential impact will vary between populations and geographies

• many of the adverse impacts are avoidable through mitigation or preventable through adaption and therefore it is worthwhile and important to take action

23/180 There are projections in the report on excess mortality linked to temperature. However, most of the models or scenarios have not looked at a wide range of impacts and mobility not been included.

23/181 UKHSA was very engaged with the health day at COP28 and part of the UK delegation.

23/182 The committee also commented that:

• a summary of the report should be produced and linked with the UKHSA strategy – this summary would be useful to promote increased awareness of UKHSA’s work with external bodies

• UKHSA should team up with other member states with common interests at COP28 to help ensure it was impactful and effective

• consideration be given to submitting the report to the parliamentary committee on climate change

• the report should be provided to UK Research and Innovation and Innovate UK as part of UKHSA’s research recommendations

• a plan for 2024 should be produced explaining how the report could work for UKHSA and be communicated

• once the report had been published the Director General, Science and Research would discuss with Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser, DHSC so it could help inform the DHSC Health strategy (Action: Isabel Oliver)

• there may be some research gaps which exist which have not been identified

23/183 The UKHSA Climate Centre had been successfully launched last year but there was more to do realise its full potential.

8. Forward look and topics for future meetings

23/184 The Science and Research Committee noted the topics for future meetings as listed in the paper (enclosure SRC/23/023).

23/185 The Committee agreed the following agenda items for the next meeting:

• science workforce – employment / recruitment retention

• Climate Centre

• AI Taskforce

23/186 The committee agreed the following agenda items for the subsequent meeting:

• impact/value proposition

• business/science and research strategy

• science workforce – producing the right environment and career development

23/187 Antimicrobial resistance would be considered as an agenda item once the National Action Plan was published. DHSC were currently considering the top 10 priorities. These could be considered by the Science and Research Committee once the priorities had been agreed.

23/188 The Senior Governance Officer would provide a timetable of agenda items for the Chair of the Science and Research Committee and Director General, Science and Research to review. (Action: Name redacted)

23/189 The Senior Governance Officer would arrange a meeting with the Chair, Director General, Science and Research and International Impact Expert so the International Impact Expert could provide feedback on his experience of the Science and Research Committee. (Action: Name redacted)

23/190 The Chair of the Science and Research Committee would discuss with the Chair of the UKHSA Advisory Board about having an MHRA Landscape agenda item at a future Advisory Board. (Action: Jon Friedland)

9. Any other business and close

23/191 There being no other business, the meeting ended at 3.55pm.