Changing policy and practice

What are the Changing Policy and Practice (CPP) awards?

Our CPP awards, which we make twice a year, are designed to ensure that discoveries made by Foundation or Medical Research Council (MRC)-funded researchers can reach a wider audience, beyond the scientific press.

The funding, of up to £30,000 each, allows our awardees to share their findings and recommendations with patients, healthcare practitioners and policymakers, to maximise the real-world impact of their research.

Some recent projects that we have awarded funding to are working to strengthen Nepal’s health systems, to empower community healthcare in South Africa, and to improve the management of acute stroke.

Why is it important to continue running this scheme?

Our CPP awards are continuing to prove their success by enabling researchers to communicate key messages from their work to specific target audiences, both in the UK and internationally.

The unique funding stream provides additional support to researchers near the end of their programme of work, helping them to reach people who can actually influence healthcare policy and practice. Past awardees have used the funding to run bespoke training and capacity-building programmes in countries with weaker healthcare infrastructure. Others have supported community mobilisation as a key means of achieving health equality in countries with limited resources. Recent awardees have also used the funding to produce and share documentary films or other media to educate small communities about pressing health issues.

This stage of research dissemination is vital and particularly so in areas of the world that are in need of healthcare reform, awareness or additional support to ensure patients can be properly cared for.

The funding enabled researchers to develop policy reports, tailor communications for local communities to tackle misinformation, and run workshops to provide a chance for key policymakers to interact with local people impacted by public health issues.

Today, we are facing a number of growing concerns to public health, from extreme heat to rising infectious diseases, to prevalent health issues facing adolescents. Through our CPP award scheme, we can support key areas of life-changing medical research, and help scientists to push the boundaries of their work into the real world – supporting communities most in need.