The Programme Directors of SPHeRE have presented a business case for funding Phase II of the SPHeRE programme to support the doctoral training of an additional 15 scholars through three cohort intakes 2018-2020. This will provide a natural continuation of the programme as the last cohort of scholars started in September 2017. The business case describes the key elements and details of the programme. A total budget of €2.5m is requested, which is within the limit set by the HRB for this continued investment and approved by the Board in February 2017.
Phase II maintains many key aspects of Phase I of SPHeRE and importantly the vision of the SPHeRE Programme to maintain a truly national research programme across population health and health services research. In addition, the Directors have fully addressed the key feedback and recommendations from the International Interim Review Panel that met in November 2016. In particular the team has
• Better focused on the SPHeRE prioritisation strategy of the policy relevant topics and have addressed how it will influence the PhD topics;
• Expanded capacity building with more holistic exposure of the scholars to a wider range of methodologies and particularly upskilling in quantitative methods; • Proposed to explore how to make the diploma more attractive internationally and available to a larger audience;
• Proposed a new approach to tackle policy dialogue, which has proved difficult in the past, as well the provision of more training and opportunities to the scholars on policy engagement;
• Proposed different ways to measure the impact and benefits resulting from the PhD projects as well as the benefits for the career of the scholars; and • Proposed a more flexible participation model in order to provide a national facility to train the best students in PHHSR regardless of the funding source or the institution once they fit a set of criteria, in particular, excellence.
