New toolkit to support research carried out across borders in the UK

The Health Research Authority (HRA), in collaboration with NHS Research Scotland, Health and Social Care (HSC) Northern Ireland and Health and Care Research Wales, has launched a new toolkit to make it easier to set up research across the UK.

The ‘carrying out research across borders’ toolkit is designed to support researchers who are planning, setting up, and conducting research in more than one UK nation.

While there are many similarities in the research approval and set-up processes across the UK nations, the toolkit provides information on the main differences so that researchers and sponsors are clear on what they need to do.

The aim of the toolkit is to help reduce the time it takes to set up research in the UK. Researchers and sponsors should use the toolkit as part of their planning.

The toolkit includes information on:

• approvals processes in the NHS and HSC
• intrusive research involving adults lacking capacity
• general medical devices and in-vitro medical devices
• accessing identifiable data without consent
• provision of the local information pack to potential participating organisations
• contracting arrangements

Matthew Sanderson, Research Regulation Specialist at HRA, said: “There are some similarities in how the four nations approve research, but it’s really important for sponsors and researchers to be aware of the key differences in the approval and set up process in the UK nations. The toolkit helps to make this clearer and will help researchers to navigate the differences.

“We recommend you use this toolkit during the planning and application stages but do revisit it if you’re thinking of making changes to your study or just to keep your knowledge up to date whilst running your research across more than one UK nation.

As guidance changes the toolkit will be updated to reflect requirements in all four nations.  

The toolkit can be found on the NHS Research Scotland website.