CSO Health Research Strategy

PREFACE

1. The vision of the Chief Scientist Scientist Office (CSO) is to support and increase the level of high quality health research conducted in Scotland for the health and financial benefits of our population, so that Scotland is recognised globally as a "come to place" for health science.

2. This strategy aims to provide clarity and coherence on what we need to do to achieve this vision, and builds upon Investing in Research, Improving Health, published in 2009, to identify those key areas where we can and should make a difference. In doing so however it is important to recognise the wider context of the research landscape. CSO research funding comes from the Scottish Government Health Directorates, with the overarching aim of improving the health of the people of Scotland. However CSO is part of a much wider ambition. The Quality Strategy set out our collective aim of providing the highest quality healthcare to our population around three ambitions - Safe, Person Centred and Effective. More recently the 2020 Vision Route Map set out 12 priority areas for action in pursuit of sustainable high quality health and social care services in Scotland. Research has a key role to play in defining, delivering and evaluating key aspects of these documents.

3. Looking forward in this context, we have identified six guiding principles that we believe will help maintain Scotland's position at the forefront of health research internationally. The same principles also support a bold vision of creating partnerships across the health and academic sector to deliver world class excellence, by harnessing research and innovation and translating it into outstanding clinical outcomes, education, improvements in population health and wealth gain for Scotland:

1. Build whenever we can on the strong science infrastructure that exists across our Universities in Scotland with vibrant PhD and post doctorate communities
2. Seek out and deliver collaborative partnerships with a tripartite mission of research, education and delivery of quality health care, underpinned by a significant NHS Scotland research infrastructure investment
3. Exploit our ability to link information from health, social care and non-health sources using data to support better treatment, safety and research
4. De-clutter the pathway for the regulation and governance of health research by taking a proportionate and streamlined approach to research governance
5. Deliver collaborative arrangements with the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, informatics and medical devices industries.
6. Collaborate across the NHS family and with other funders to develop research programmes that add value, and position Scotland as a single research site when it makes good sense to do so.

4. Since taking up post as Chief Scientist I have been impressed by the range of research activities funded or co-ordinated through the Chief Scientist Office. To seek to progress them all with equal vigour would be beyond our means and indeed impractical for a country of our size.

5. This Strategy Update has therefore focused on five key areas for action that we feel will make a real difference to delivery, and will lend direct support to the guiding principles. These are (i) Efficient Rand D Support for Research (ii) Partnership with Scottish Patients and Public (iii) Targeted Deployment of Resources (iv) Working in Collaboration and (v) Investing in Research.

6. Of these, I would like to emphasise the use of data, and the contribution of health research to Scotland's National Outcomes. Firstly, this strategy update sets out our ambition for the use of informatics not only to gear up the research landscape, but also to work in partnership with the NHS to use data to transform the way the NHS operates. Informatics is arguably a key to making the provision of high quality health care sustainable, perhaps the biggest challenge facing all healthcare providers and Governments in the next 20 years.

6. Secondly, we must also be mindful of the contribution research makes to the Scottish Government's purpose of increasing sustainable economic growth. This year has seen significant new and external investment in our informatics capability and our universities continue to attract UK funding on a scale disproportionate to our size. We have also seen a year on year increase in the value of the commercial research contracted through NHS Research Scotland, the revenues from which flow back into the NHS and the wider economy.

7. While identifying the five specific areas for priority action within this Strategy Update, the wider contribution made by other parts of the research community is not forgotten, nor is the wider ambition that research serves. Nevertheless, we believe the time is right to focus to ensure we deliver not only on the ambitions of Investing in Research, Improving Health but also on the original vision of the contribution CSO makes to the health of Scotland. It is forty years since the Chief Scientist Office was established, and Sir Andrew Watt Kay described CSO in Health Bulletin as "a partnership within which science will have more influence on the Government's central policy-making activities than before, and which will contribute more directly and more effectively to the task of making the best use of science and technology for the needs of the community as a whole." We believe this strategy is an important milestone as we seek to transform lives and communities and support the improvement of NHS Scotland over the next forty years.

Professor Andrew Morris FRSE F MedSci, Chief Scientist Health

INTRODUCTION - OUR NATIONAL AMBITION

1. Scotland has a proud heritage in the field of health research. Our previous Strategy Investing in Research, Improving Health set out our ambition of placing Scotland at the international forefront of clinical translational research and the development of systems medicine. That ambition is a reminder of how quickly the research landscape can change, with Stratified Medicine and Informatics widely seen as the new areas where we must compete to be globally competitive.

2. The ambition of this Strategy is therefore to increase the level of high quality research conducted in Scotland, for the health and financial benefits of our population. The Strategy focuses on five key areas that underpin success in the conduct of current and future research, aimed at supporting clinical research across a vast number of disease areas. Our patients and public rightly expect a focus on their needs as well as the ambitions of our research community. While CSO will continue to support new and promising research modalities, it is essential to the long term sustainability of our ambitions that opportunities exist for all high quality research to be supported.

This draft Strategy identifies 5 areas critical to our future success:

• Efficient Rand D Support for Research
• Partnership with Scottish Patients and the Public
• Targeted Deployment of Resources
• Working in Collaboration
• Investing in the Future

3. Each of these areas are the subject of a chapter, setting out our proposals, and where appropriate - questions, with a view to realising our national ambition.