Health Foundation funding and opportunities in 2024

1. Fellowships and networks  

Sciana: The Health Leaders Network  

The Sciana Network brings together senior health and wellbeing leaders for a 2-year systems leadership programme and supports cross-country and interdisciplinary connections, innovation and collaboration. Each cohort comprises up to 18 outstanding leaders, at least six each from Germany, Switzerland and the UK. Applications for the next round will be opening in spring 2024. More about the Sciana Network

Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Healthcare Data Analytics  

This award recognises practitioners in applied health care data analytics who have gone the extra mile in delivering innovative improvements in the health care system. The award is led by the Royal Statistical Society and supported by the Health Foundation. The fifth round of the award will open for applications in March 2024. Find out more  

Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy and Practice  

The Harkness Fellowships aim to produce the next generation of health policy leaders in participating countries, offering a unique opportunity to spend 12 months in the USA. Run by the Commonwealth Fund, in collaboration with the Health Foundation and the National Institute for Health Research, fellowships are suitable for mid-career professionals, including policymakers, researchers, clinical leaders, hospital and insurance managers, and journalists. The next call for applications for the 2025–26 fellowships will be announced in summer 2024. Find out more  

Q community  

The Q community is a community of thousands of people across the UK and Ireland, collaborating to improve the safety and quality of health and care. There are over 5,000 members, spanning health, care and lived experience, and the community continues to grow. Together, Q’s members and partners learn, share and support each other and the wider health care sector to tackle challenges. Through networking and events, insight and resources, topic-focused groups and collaborative funding programmes, Q enables members and others to develop and deliver their day-to-day work. Opportunities to join Q are free and open on a continuous basis. We welcome applications from people with improvement expertise based anywhere in the UK and Ireland. Join Q

Health Anchors Learning Network

The Health Anchors Learning Network (HALN) is a UK-wide network for people responsible for, or interested in, anchor approaches in health (where organisations consciously use their resources to improve health and make a wider contribution to their local communities). The network is free and open to join for colleagues from health organisations and partners including local authorities or other public agencies, voluntary and community and social enterprise sector or educational or housing organisations. Sign up on the HALN website

Local government analytical capability

We’re exploring how local government organisations could enhance the way that they use the rich knowledge and information they hold about their local populations to improve health and address inequalities. We’re keen to learn more about the culture of data sharing and collaboration that underpins projects to achieve this, what kinds of tools are being used and what kind of partnerships are being developed across sectors to support delivery. Please get in touch to share your thoughts, or to tell us about projects that have successfully linked and analysed data to measure the impact of the wider determinants on health. Explore our work on local government and sign up for updates on this topic  

2. Funding and research opportunities  

New improvement programme on adoption of innovation  

We will be launching a new programme in 2024 that will draw on the experiences of a group of integrated care system partners to understand what is needed at a regional system level to accelerate the adoption of innovation. Watch this space for more information as plans develop.  

REAL Centre research programmme

2024 will see us design and develop a new programme to build capacity and diversity of thought in health economics. The programme will create cross-disciplinary opportunities for new knowledge production and mobilisation as well as improving access into the health economics sector. Watch this space for more information as our plans develop. 

Funding opportunities for members of the Q community  

The Q community’s grant funding programme is jointly funded by the Health Foundation and NHS England.

• In 2024 we will launch our sixth round of Q Exchange funding, which will provide 20 teams with up to £40,000 each. Voted for by the Q community, these projects will improve health and care quality and efficiency across system boundaries. First-stage applications will open for community members on 6 February 2024. Find out more 
• Q members and partner organisations can also apply for up to £20,000 Supporting Q Connections funding for activities focused on supporting continued collaborative working and collective learning that strengthen members’ improvement work. Applications are open throughout the year. Find out more

3. Opportunities to tender for work during 2024

We will be commissioning a range of work over the year. Watch out for updates in our newsletter and on our current opportunities page as formal invitations to tender are published:

Now open or coming soon:

• Exploring NHS management capacity: We are currently seeking a supplier for a programme of research that will explore NHS management capacity. The primary focus of the research is to examine existing capacity in NHS trusts in England, but the work will also include an exploratory phase on the current management capacity of system-level bodies in England (eg integrated care systems, provider collaboratives and primary care networks). We anticipate bids of up to £250,000. Deadline for responses is Friday 22 March 2024 and the work should start in spring 2024. Read the full invitation to tender to find out more 
• Researching how to measure productivity: We will be launching a tender for a new research project that aims to develop a typology that outlines the range of potential approaches for measuring productivity in health. Opens for tender in February 2024.

4. Other ways to get involved 

Health Equals

Health Equals will continue its work to increase understanding among the public, politicians and policymakers of the wider determinants that shape our health and what we can do to reduce health inequalities. Our current ‘Get Well Soon Britain’ campaign is calling for a new Bill of Health that would set out an ambitious commitment to improve the health of the nation, and promote the building blocks of health and wellbeing across government. Find out more about Health Equals  

THIS Institute research

Our partners at the Health Foundation-funded THIS Institute run large-scale research projects studying interventions aimed at improving quality and safety in health care. Projects are run in collaboration with healthcare staff, patients, policymakers and the public. Explore studies actively recruiting for participants or subscribe to hear about new opportunities

Thiscovery

Thiscovery is an online platform for collaboration, innovation and improvement. Explore opportunities to take part in projects which help improve health and care services

5. Use our resources and stay up to date  

• Ensure you subscribe to our monthly email newsletter if you don’t already.    
• Subscribe to our monthly podcast featuring high-profile guests each month discussing the big issues affecting health and care.  
• Visit the website at any time to see all opportunities for funding, partnerships and fellowships currently open for application.  
• Join the conversation about current health and care issues by following us on X, LinkedIn or Facebook.
• Watch out for our running programme of events and webinars, bringing practitioners and policymakers together to discuss issues impacting on health and care.
• We regularly publish new blogs, publications and long reads, presenting the knowledge and ideas gained from our research, improvement programmes and other areas of work.
• We’re constantly adding new content to our Evidence hub – What drives inequalities?

This content originally featured in our email newsletter, which explores perspectives and expert opinion on a different health or health care topic each month.