Medical research: assessing the benefits to society

The Academy, the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust established the UK Evaluation Forum to explore how organisations might evaluate and demonstrate the outcomes of research relevant to human health.

Status: Completed

Summary
Steering committee

The Academy has for a long time recognised the need for improved evaluation and demonstration of the socio-economic benefits that are derived from investments in medical research.

To address this, the Academy worked with the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust to establish a UK Evaluation Forum. The Forum's remit was 'to explore how member organisations might share information and co-ordinate activity in evaluating and demonstrating the outcomes of research relevant to human health.’

A steering committee, representing a range of governmental, research council, charitable, academic and commercial research organisations was convened to develop the Forum's strategy. Subsequently, each member organisation nominated a representative to sit on the UK Evaluation Forum Working Group.

In order to raise awareness about the topic in the scientific community, and as a means of providing material for the report, a symposium was held in London on 2 and 3 June 2005.

The UK Evaluation Forum's report 'Medical research: assessing the benefits to society' was published on 1 June 2006.

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