About
The NIHR Policy Research Unit in Policy Innovation and Evaluation (PIRU) aims to improve UK health and social care policymaking by evaluating new policies in their early stages, or before they are implemented.
We are an independent team of researchers who are experts in evaluation and who advise the UK Government and its agencies on new policies in health improvement, health care and social care and their possible effects on different communities. We want to understand how well these policies are likely to work in practice and how they might reduce (or increase) inequalities. We also review what is already known about the effects of new policies. Across all of our projects, we aim to consider seven cross-cutting themes and ways of working illustrated in the figure below.
Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE)
How we can meaningfully engage and involve service users, those with experience of health and care services, carers and members of the public? You can find out more about our PPIE strategy and how we make sure that our research is as relevant to people’s needs as possible here.
Health inequalities
Are policies and interventions considering existing inequalities and could they lessen (or increase) these? We work with our PPIE members and other stakeholders to explore how to prioritise and evaluate inequalities and their impacts.
Innovation practice
How is policy innovation thought of (differently) in public health, health services and social care? We investigate how this can provide valuable lessons for policy development.
Horizon scanning
What can we learn from how other countries or sectors, such as education or housing, are dealing with similar issues? Existing evidence can be invaluable to our evaluations.
Systems thinking
Does the policy affect parts of the system other than the problem or population it aimed to address, and how? We explore different approaches to help understand how different parts of the system connect and how policies might affect them.
Capacity strengthening
How can we best develop the next generation of leaders in policy evaluation research and improve scientific capacity for innovative evaluation? We actively develop training opportunities and use open access courses and webinars to reach researchers, practitioners and policymakers.
Knowledge mobilisation and policy engagement
What can be done to make our research accessible to as many people as possible? We want to ensure that our findings are as relevant to policy officials as they are to services user groups, the media and the wider public.