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Insight, opinion and analysis of the work we do, the work we fund, and important issues in health and social care research.

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HRB Highlights

As we reach the end of 2021, staff from across the HRB reflect on some of their year’s highlights and key achievements.

Image with year 2021
Ann Cody, Head of Investigator-Led Grants, Research Careers and Enablers

The HRB’s Strategy 2025 puts people at the heart of everything we do. This includes incorporating the voice of the public, patients and carers into research, and we made significant progress on this in 2021. Highlights include: 

  • The launch of the PPI Ignite Network, jointly funded with the Irish Research Council, is a milestone for our journey on public, patient, and carer involvement (PPI) in research. It involves seven universities, 10 national and over 50 local partner organisations working together towards making PPI part of research
  • Eight PPI Panel members participated in three application review panels in 2021 (IDS-Tilda, Infodemic and the Research Cooperation on Quality and Patient Safety). Furthermore, written public reviews were part of the assessment in three other schemes, namely the Collaborative Doctoral Award, the Secondary Data Analysis Projects, and the Investigator-Led Projects. Between these, the HRB trained 155 public reviewers to participate in our grant review process. Together with their 21 experienced colleagues who did not need training, they delivered 311 written reviews, a new record for the HRB in one year.

We will continue our PPI journey in 2022.

Liam Sinnott, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Facilities Manager

The upgrade of the HRB’s intranet was a key achievement in 2021. Technology moves quickly and the old intranet sat on an aging platform with a functional but outdated user experience.  A pillar of our ICT strategy is to migrate infrastructure elements to the cloud if appropriate, which we did with our new intranet.

Special mention to my colleague Ger Casey Lennon who was project lead. His first task was to conduct virtual meetings with representatives from each unit to garner feedback on what staff wanted. We reminded staff that the intranet belonged to them and we collated a wish list of corporate information. Our new intranet is now firmly in place, and feedback is positive.

Dr Sarah Craig, Head of National Health Information Systems (NHIS)

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and cyberattacks on the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE), the NHIS continued collecting and reporting data in 2021.

We also introduced a new HRB publication series called StatLink; reported on drugs and alcohol from the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS); developed intellectual disability, physical and sensory disability and autism bulletins from our National Ability Supports System (NASS); and our annual activities report from National Psychiatric In-patient Reporting System (NPIRS).

Furthermore 2021, our data was used to support policy in areas such as mental health, the National Drugs Strategy, Ireland's national strategy to reduce suicide, as well as the National Road Safety Strategy.

Amanda Daly, PhD, Programme Manager: EU4Health and International Cooperation and National Focal Point for EU4Health

In 2021, the HRB took a lead role in supporting the national roll out of the European Commission’s new health programme, EU4Health. With a budget of over €5 billion, EU4Health is dedicated to supporting structural reforms of national health systems, cross-border cooperation between Member States and decisive EU action in the fight against cancer. It will go beyond pandemic responsiveness to support EU health policy priorities, and pave the way to a strong European Health Union that will improve and safeguard the health of all EU citizens.

The HRB hosts the role of the National Focal Point for EU4Health, and work closely with the Department of Health to support them in the implementation of the 2021 work programme. We have disseminated the funding opportunities to a broad range of stakeholders, and there has already been significant participation in various actions and a growing interest in the programme. Work is now underway for the 2022 work programme, which is due to launch early in 2022.

Dr Jennifer Ralph James, Head, National Office for Research Ethics Committees

The National Office team had a productive and energising 2021, reaching key milestones for transition to a national system of research ethics review for regulated health research.

These include:

  • Following a public call for Expressions of Interest for National Research Ethics Committee (NREC) membership, the first national campaign of its kind, we provided a recommendation for appointments to the Minister for Health. Crucially, this recommendation represented a diversity of expertise and perspectives, reflective of contemporary Irish society. A total of 54 members were appointed to three NRECS - two for clinical trials of investigational medicinal products (NREC-CT) and one for clinical investigations of medical devices (NREC-MD)
  • Launching operationalisation of the NREC-CT (Committees A and B) and the NREC-MD in May. Convening virtually each monthly, the NRECs returned decisions on almost 200 applications for research ethics approval in 2021
  • Publishing our first annual report in June
Oonagh Ward, Head of Research and Innovation Infrastructures

In 2021, we continued our response to COVID-19 through collaboration with the Department of Health (DoH) and health partners. This resulted in the extension of Ireland’s participation in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Solidarity trial, the largest trial to date of treatments repurposed for use in the pandemic. With this investment we leveraged support to participate in two Ireland’s participation in two additional trials funded by the EU Response Programme, namely Discovery and SolidAct. This enabled greater access for Irish patients with COVID-19 to potentially life-saving therapies.

At the request of the DoH, in 2021 we also established the National Irish COVID-19 Biobank (NICB). An essential component of Ireland’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this valuable national asset will create greater opportunity for research and innovation to increase our understanding of COVID-19, inform new treatment and management strategies, improve outcomes for patients, and better prepare us for future emergencies.

Dr Jean Long, Head of Unit, HRB Evidence Centre

The HRB Evidence Centre was as busy as ever in 2020. And while the team achieved much to be proud of, three standout items are as follows:

  1. Publishing the main findings of the 2019–20 National Drug and Alcohol Survey to support the National Drug Strategy address drug prevalence and patterns of use in Ireland
  2. Publishing an updated overview on Alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harm, and alcohol policy in Ireland to support the introduction of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act, 2018, and cited as supporting evidence to the planned introduction of minimum unit price in January 2022
  3. Many of our evidence products influence policy. More recently, two systematic reviews and a mapping exercise on e-cigarettes informed the Health Service Executive’s 2020 clinical guidelines on smoking cessation, and are regularly quoted in Dáil debates to support the ban of the use of e-cigarettes among children. Meanwhile, our systematic review and evidence brief on housing with support for older people informed Sláintecare and Age Friendly Ireland, the age-friendly homes programme.
Dr Emily Vereker, Secretariat Programme Manager, Health Research Consent Declaration Committee (HRCDC)

The HRCDC plays an important role in the health research regulatory landscape in Ireland and safeguards the use of health data for research when participant consent cannot be obtained. 2021 commenced positively, with the enactment of the much welcomed amendments to the Health Research Regulations. To this end, the Secretariat and HRCDC worked collaboratively with the Department of Health and other stakeholders to develop dedicated guidance on each amendment.

Throughout 2021, the Secretariat proudly supported the HRCDC’s work, including assisting with monitoring of consent declarations made by the HRCDC. It convened 11 times, made 25 consent declarations for research studies, and approved eight amendment requests.

In 2021, the Secretariat also strengthened its engagement with national stakeholders and the broader research community on important areas of research that align closely with the HRCDC’s work. Such engagements enabled the Secretariat to share expertise of the HRCDC and learnings from its decision-making process. A notable achievement was the Secretariat’s collaboration with the Central Statistics Office and HRB, to ensure alignment of its respective application processes, for researchers accessing the COVID-19 Data Research Hub.

Gillian Markey, Communications Manager

The biggest achievement for the communications team in 2021 was the launch of our new strategy, Health research – making an impact. While the genesis of the strategy itself was an organisation-wide endeavour, communications handled the publication, launch and digital content. And, like every team across the HRB, our work for the next five years will be driven by its six strategic objectives. This made 2021 particularly interesting and exciting, as we looked to effectively communicate new activities in new ways.