I was a bit surprised to discover, three weeks ago, that there was such a thing as OSCHR. It's been around since the Cooksey Report (2006, see also House of Commons Sci & Tech report) and you would think that I might have clocked its existence given that I've been working in a sphere that's at least peripherally related to health research. In fact I even spent some time in the Research Team as a grants administrator.
True, charity funded research is a bit separate from government funded research but I was still a bit surprised at my ignorance here. I wonder what else I've missed.
Anyway... as I see it OSCHR oversee the funding (both spend and decisions made) that MRC and NIHR do and it reports back to BIS and Department of Health.
From the UKCRC there's this, which explains how it all hangs together, but I still feel I need a bit more.
"In 2006, Sir David Cooksey published a review of the institutional arrangements for the public funding of health research in the UK, which proposed the establishment of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) to act as a central coordinating body for health research. The UK health research budget is now ring-fenced into a single fund, and OSCHR provides strategic oversight of the budgetary division and research strategy of both the Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research.
OSCHR reports to the Department of Health and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills , and includes structures to allow strategic input from the devolved administrations."
I know who's on the OSCHR board and that it holds the purse strings but how does it make decisions and are there any reports more recent than the 2008 one? Presumably it puts out calls periodically for funding (or is this done via MRC / NIHR?) as a charity would, perhaps in addition to 'apply any time' grants. Does it fund anything through an acronym other than MRC / NIHR? Does it get money from anywhere other than BIS / DH?
Thank you :)
Acronym buster
BIS - Governmental Department of Business, Innovation and Skills
DH or DoH - Department of Health. I think they lost the 'o' in a reshuffle
MRC - Medical Research Council (one of 7 research councils, all fall within UKRC)
NIHR - National Institute for Health Research
OSCHR - Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research
UKCRC - UK Clinical Research Collaboration
UKRC - UK Research Councils
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