- What's the NIHR Programme Development grant?
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In 2023-24 the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) programme for child health offered significant funding to address some of the most challenging issues in paediatrics. The funding opportunity extended beyond health research and includes wider aspects of child wellbeing, including public health, mental health, social care and education.
Professor Paul Dimitri, Vice President for Science & Research at RCPCH, reflected on the importance of this funding:
This Programme Grants call, delivered in collaboration with the NIHR, marks a critical turning point for child health research. By focusing on some of the most complex and under-researched areas, we are not only addressing urgent unmet needs but investing in the people and infrastructure to build sustainable, long-term capacity. Strengthening this partnership with the NIHR enables us to transform the research landscape—empowering multidisciplinary teams and early career researchers to generate real-world, applied solutions that improve the lives of children and young people.
Read more about the grants and application process on the NIHR website
What evidence-based standardised health, education and social care offer and model of care should be provided for children with neurodisability and their families, and what would be needed to ensure a localised version can be provided efficiently at scale and individualised to reduce inequity?
Children with neurodisability and their families require timely support from the NHS, education, and social care.
Improving the efficiency, equity, and quality of services provided to children with neurodisability through local offers of integrated care is a government priority.
In this 15-month programme we aim to:
- Strengthen existing partnerships with disabled children and young people and their families and work with people whose voices are not traditionally heard so that offers and models of care recommended by the development grant are inclusive and accessible.
- Establish and cultivate a community of childhood disability Early Career Researchers from health, education, and social care
- Understand what health, education and social care is offered to children and parent carers, what they receive, and what they want
- Work with parent carers and professionals to identify which outcome domains are important to measure
After this programme, we will design the subsequent research programme to focus on evaluating innovative components and models of health, education and social care that parent carers report as valuable are associated with good health and wellbeing and quality of care outcomes. We will identify diverse candidate UK areas to join the PGfAR, including areas with underserved NHS CorePLUS20 populations.
Co-designing a culturally sensitive parenting support programme for refugee and asylum-seeking parents of children under 5 in the UK living in resource limited settings (PSP-REFUGEE)
Our goal is to help families create safe, healthy and loving homes where their children can thrive. Existing parenting support programmes don’t always meet the specific needs of families seeking asylum or refuge, particularly those raising young children in overcrowded or unfamiliar environments. Nor do they often recognise how a person’s cultural heritage can enhance their parenting approach... Without a deep understanding of the families and children we aim to support, we risk sustainability and effectiveness of these programmes. Building this sensitivity and responsiveness from the start make this a very exciting project, one that is likely to connect with diverse communities beyond our scope.
The first five years of a child’s life are vital in shaping their long-term cognitive, emotional, and physical development. However, families seeking asylum often live in overcrowded, unsafe, and unstable housing that makes it difficult to provide the care and stability young children need.
PSP-REFUGEE uses creative and trauma-informed methods to engage directly with families and explore the unique challenges they face, and the cultural strengths and parenting resilience lessons they can share. The project is co-designing both family-led support and training for professionals across health, housing, education and social care sectors. Underserved families remain central throughout the process, shaping critical, inclusive, and culturally sensitive solutions for policy and practice.
The project is led by University College London and De Montfort University and includes collaboration with Happy Baby Community, Institute of Health Visiting, Flinders University, Queen Mary University of London, and NHS North Central London.
Developing a more integrated approach to evaluating multi-sectoral interventions and polices to improve health outcomes for adolescents
Young people have told us they want services that work together and understand their whole story. This project is a chance to build more joined-up support - and to properly evaluate how it can make a real difference to their lives.
This 12-month development project aims to improve the health and wellbeing of young people in the UK by strengthening collaboration between professionals in health, education, and social care. Young people in the UK experience poorer health outcomes than peers in similar countries, with many reporting negative service experiences, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project focuses on identifying and improving interventions for two high-need groups: those affected by physical or sexual harm, and those persistently absent or excluded from school. It will also ensure that approaches reflect the needs of young people with special educational needs, disabilities, and from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Through literature reviews, workshops, and stakeholder engagement – including strong involvement from young people and families – the project will refine interventions, agree on outcome measures and build cross-sector research collaboration. In the long term, it aims to lay the groundwork for wider testing and help develop more joined-up, responsive services for young people facing complex challenges.
AEGIS: Advancing equity for children and young people seeking asylum and refugees: a blueprint for generalisable interventions
We are delighted to have been awarded this grant to support the AEGIS Project, which aims to improve outcomes for children seeking asylum in the UK. Delivered by a multidisciplinary team, including young people themselves, we hope it will make a meaningful difference for this vulnerable group.
The project team is already well underway with analysing local service data, exploring how to identify this cohort in national datasets, and engaging directly with children and young people to ask, “what matters to you?”. They have developed a stakeholder network and identified young people to act as champions and co-researchers.
The team is establishing what works, what doesn’t, what has or hasn’t been tried, where gaps in care remain – and how these might be addressed.
If you'd like to learn more, feel free to get in touch at uclh.aegisproject@nhs.net.
Promoting active play in preschoolers for optimal health and development
As more children face obesity, poor mental health, or both in early childhood, we need cost-effective ways to reverse this trend. Active play, which offers a fun way for children to engage in physical activity, may be a promising option, and this grant aims to better understand and promote it to support preschoolers’ health and wellbeing.
Obesity and poor mental health in early childhood can result in significant challenges for later health, wellbeing and academic success. Active play (AP), defined as voluntary engagement in physical activity of any intensity that is fun and/or rewarding, can help encourage healthy weight and good mental health in young children but little is known about AP in UK preschoolers.
This programme development grant will generate the first population-level data on AP among UK preschoolers (aged 1-4), helping to inform the design of a future intervention to promote AP. The team will analyse large datasets to identify groups needing more support, review existing AP programmes for relevance in the UK, and speak with parents, childcare providers and children to understand what matters to them and which types of play they enjoy. They will also build a diverse network to ensure the research is relevant and beneficial to those who need it most.
CHESS – Complexity and outcomes in health, education, and social support for children and young people with life-limiting conditions
We know children with life-limiting conditions often have complex needs, but there’s no standard way to assess them across services. CHESS brings families, researchers and professionals together to co-create a practical, meaningful definition—so children’s needs can be met more consistently and on time.
Children with life-limiting conditions often need support from health, social care, and education services, but there is currently no clear way to measure the “complexity” of their care. The CHESS project aims to change this through three key activities.
First, a new research group will be formed, including parents and professionals from across sectors. Next, the team will conduct a realist review of existing evidence on how to better integrate care for children with life-limiting conditions. They will also speak to children, families, and professionals to explore what “complexity” means, how to identify it, and how to meet children’s care needs. Finally, the project will bring everyone together to agree on a shared definition and approach. The ultimate goal is to support the delivery of high-quality, child-centred care across all health, education and social services.