2016 has been a busy and successful year for the Academy and, as the year ends, I am taking time to reflect on our achievements and thank those who have helped make them possible.
Advancing major policy projects
This year we published two major reports. In March we saw our team science report advocate the importance of improving recognition of team science contributions in biomedical research careers. This was followed by our latest report in September, ‘Improving the health of the public 2040’, which called for a change to the current approach to public health research needs to change to allow us to address the complex health challenges the UK population will face in the next 24 years. The report had wide reaching findings, and we look forward to the stakeholder implementation workshop we will hold for this project in January 2017.
There was also significant progress on our project scrutinising ‘how can we all best use evidence?’ led by an oversight group chaired by Sir John Tooke. This complex and important project has involved distinct work packages on conflicts of interest, communicating evidence, and methods to generate evidence, as well as a programme of deliberative dialogue with citizens, patients and healthcare professionals. Some aspects of this work have already been published, and we look forward to the project coming together with the launch of the oversight group report in early Spring 2017.
Our report from 2015 ‘Improving reproducibility and reliability in biomedical research’, produced jointly with Wellcome, MRC and BBSRC, has continued to shine a light on this area and help the community to address the issues involved. Recently we worked with partners to produce a ‘one year on’ statement, outlining progress against the recommendations and the work still to do.
Demonstrating our appetite to follow up policy issues over the longer term, five years on from publication of our seminal publication on regulation and governance of health research, we held a meeting that reviewed progress and highlighted new challenges for the community.
Securing the right environment for research to flourish
Of course, we have also had to be agile in our response to events over the last year. One example was our energetic work to oppose the Government’s proposal to include an anti-lobbying clause in its grants, which in its original form would have endangered the ability of researchers, and particularly Academies, to inform policy making. Thankfully, following input from us and others, the Minimum Grants Standards published in early December present a much more workable solution.
We were pleased to provide input into Dame Ann Dowling’s review of university-business collaboration, and to the Nurse Review on the Research Councils. We have since engaged Ministers, officials and Parliamentarians on the Higher Education & Research Bill, including detailed briefings on the Bill as it progresses through the Commons and Lords. Our numerous consultation responses since April 2015 have addressed animals in science, psychoactive substances, regenerative medicine, visas for researchers, the NHS mandate, gene editing and many other issues. This work has ensured that the expert views of the Fellowship have informed these inquiries.
Putting the case for continued investment in science post Brexit
Even before the political shocks of 2016, the national Academies, in concert with the wider research community, worked hard to make the case for public investment in a world-leading UK science base, helping to secure a favourable settlement for research in the 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review. This work built on very long standing relationships with officials, Ministers and Parliamentarians. These relationships were effectively wiped out in the formation of a new government post-Brexit. For the past five months we have been building new relationships, in some cases starting from scratch in making the case for the role of science and research in driving health and wealth. It’s a testimony to the speed with which our community has managed to organise itself that we expect life sciences to be a key element of the forthcoming industrial strategy.
On the issue of Brexit we have enjoyed good, timely and direct engagement with Jo Johnson and David Davis in considering the implications for science and innovation, and the Academies are represented on Jo Johnsons’s high level Brexit advisory committee. Our main priority is to maintain the stamina of Academy Fellows and staff to keep plugging away as the Brexit process advances. The hard yards are undoubtedly still to come.
Reaching the international scientific community
A continued area of transformation has been the Academy’s international reach, including as a delivery partner in the Government’s Newton Fund and through the Daniel Turnberg Travel Fellowships scheme. In 2015/6 we supported 43 researchers through these schemes, fostering links between the UK and India, China, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
The Federation of European Academies of Medicine has been an important platform for engaging on European issues, and our work with FEAM over four years helped to inform the final EU Data Protection Directive published at the end of 2015, in which a much better balance was struck between the value of research and the protection of individuals than had been present in earlier drafts.
Supporting biomedical researchers
We were delighted to make the first awards through our Springboard scheme for biomedical researchers in their first independent post in March, awarding 19 grants to individuals from 14 different institutions. In addition to funding of £100,000 over 2 years, Springboard awardees are invited to join our mentoring and careers development programme, thus providing a tailored package of support at a very delicate career point. Following generous initial investment from Wellcome Trust, we are now looking to grow the consortium of funders to this important scheme. The 19 Springboard awardees were joined by 43 awardees of our Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers scheme in 2015/6, and it was a great pleasure to bring the cohorts together in our annual Winter Science meeting. This gave awardees the opportunity to share their research, make connections with Fellows, funders and each other, and really start to feel part of the Academy family.
Our mentoring programme paired a further 100 early career researchers with an Academy Fellow, bringing the total number of mentoring pairs to over 500. We took our mentoring and career development roadshow to 8 different cities in 2015/6, reaching hundreds of early career researchers. Nearly 200 trainees attended our popular Spring Meeting for Clinical Academics in Training held in February of this year, many of whom benefitted from publication of their abstracts in the accompanying Lancet booklet.
Our one year pilot SUSTAIN programme concluded in the summer, to support women researchers as they establish their independent research careers. Twenty participants have received tailored training, peer coaching and mentoring from Academy Fellows. The feedback from participants has been outstanding and we launched a second round of the scheme in September.
This year 23 early career researchers and 16 Fellows participated in our bespoke media training sessions, bringing the total women trained to 64. Participants have given interviews on the Today programme, BBC 5Live and BBC Women’s Hour, as well as appearing in print and online articles.
Supporting collaboration
It’s been rewarding to see the continued success of the Academy’s FORUM over the last year, as a mechanism to convene industry, academe, regulators and the NHS. We’ve held FORUM meetings on stratified medicine, including looking at exemplar clinical pathways in diabetes and cardiovascular disease, geographical clusters, trajectories of ageing and real world evidence, as well as the Annual FORUM lecture, on what research can do to improve the productivity of the NHS. In 2015/6, our FORUM and policy events combined involved representation from 281 different organisations.
Looking to the future
Academy Fellows are at the core of all our work, which means it is essential we continue to benefit from the strongest and most diverse pool of candidates. The Academy Council has been keen to see an increased focus on improving diversity across all aspects of the Academy’s business over the last 18 months, and we have been working with our new Council diversity champions on initiatives to improve gender balance in the first instance. We’re now moving to encompass further aspects of diversity as we go forward. We are extremely grateful to our 10 Regional Champions who have delivered positive impacts for our regional agenda, organising events in Edinburgh, Leeds, Southampton, Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Exeter and Oxford.
With thanks
Over 2016 the Academy has balanced a busy portfolio of proactive and reactive work, which has relied on the wise counsel and steady guidance of our Officers and Council. Our achievements have been made possible through the outstanding leadership of our President, Officers and Council, the commitment and enthusiasm of our Fellows, the investment of our stakeholders, and the talent and dedication of our staff. We spared no blushes in communicating the excellent feedback on the staff we received as part of the Perceptions survey of Fellows and stakeholders earlier this year. I am extremely proud of this very talented team and privileged to be part of it.
Again, it is important to stress that Fellows are at the heart of Academy activities. Fellows have shaped and led our policy projects and responses from Fellows to requests for information have helped us respond to over 40 consultaion responses, statements and meeting reports in 2016. Fellows are also the driving force behind our grants and career development schemes by supporting us in making the awards and reviewing applications, serving as mentors and engaging with participants. We are extremely grateful for the time and expertise they have provided us with over the last year.
In conclusion
The Academy has been following an exciting trajectory of growth and development over the last year, building the Fellows, staff, partners, resources and influence needed to fulfil our mission to advance biomedical and health research and its translation into benefits for society. We believe this puts us in a strong position to continue our work to improve health through research in 2017.
For more information on work of the Academy during 2016 you can read the Executive Director’s address to the 2016 AGM here.