UK Prevention Research Partnership An alliance of funders supporting research into the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases

The UKPRP has committed over £44m to support this research.

The first round of UKPRP funding in 2019 was awarded to eight projects, bringing together leading researchers as well as local and national policymakers, charities, non-government organisations (NGOs) and the public. 

A second round of funding is now supporting three consortia that aim to understand and influence social, economic and environmental factors that affect health.

The awards cover a wide variety of issues including:

• investigating the approaches used by commercial producers of tobacco, alcohol and food to promote products
• school food systems and their effects on the quality of children’s diets
• embedding health considerations in urban planning and decision-making processes
• addressing underlying drivers of poor adolescent mental health
• reducing violence that harms health. 

Awards are made through two types of funding:

• Consortium award: £4–7m for 5 years. These are interdisciplinary research programmes aimed at tackling a specific challenge to prevent people becoming ill. They aim to generate and implement new ideas that can deliver change at a population-level.

• Network award: £100,000 per annum for up to 4 years. This funding is to develop new communities of researchers from diverse disciplines (including experts not previously involved in prevention research), to tackle NCD prevention.

Successful consortia awards:

• Professor Linda Bauld (University of Edinburgh) – SPECTRUM: Shaping public health policies to reduce inequalities and harm. £5.9m.

• Professor Matthew Hickman (University of Bristol) – TRUUD: Tackling Root Causes Upstream of Unhealthy Urban Development. £6.6m.

• Professor Petra Meier (University of Sheffield) – SIPHER: System-science In Public Health Economic Research. £4.9m.

• Professor John Wright (Bradford Institute of Health Research) – ActEarly: a city collaboratory approach to early promotion of good health and wellbeing. £6.6m.

• Dr Ruth Hunter (Queen’s University Belfast), Professor Ruth Jepson (University of Edinburgh), Professor Sarah Rodgers (University of Liverpool) – GroundsWell: Community-engaged and Data-informed Systems Transformation of Urban Green and Blue Space for Population Health. £7.1m. 

• Professor Peter Fonagy (University College London) – Kailo: A systemic approach to improving adolescent mental health. £5.3m.

• Professor Sylvia Walby (City University London) – VISION: The Violence, Health and Society Consortium. £7.1m. 

Successful network awards:

• Ruth Dundas (University of Glasgow) – MatCHNet: Maternal and Child Health Network. Harnessing cross-country administrative data to evaluate national policy impacts on maternal, infant and child health and health inequalities. £408,000 over 4 years.

• Professor Paul Kingston (University of Chester) – PETRA: Prevention of diseases using trade agreements. £318,000 over 3 years.

• Professor Laurence Moore (University of Glasgow) – PHASE: The Population Health Agent-based Simulation Network. £402,000 over 4 years.

• Professor Jayne Woodside (Queen's University Belfast) – GENIUS network: Generating Excellent Nutrition In UK Schools. Opportunities for intervention and innovation in the UK School Food System: £254,000 over 2.5 years.

Find out more about each of the successful projects on the UKPRP website.