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This project focussed on understanding how a large research programme with lots of partner organisations make decisions about whose research priorities get taken forward.
We found that pre-existing relationships between universities and services were really important but that as time went on having a formal programme itself meant that new spaces could be created for discussion and decision making, including using formal consensus approaches. The way the programme was set up, such as having implementation workstreams and ‘matched’ funding from partner organisations, supported flexibility in the way people worked, and the 5 year lifespan meant that it felt stable enough for people to invest effort. Making decisions in this way meant that individual research projects could be led by the needs of health services, so that they had greater impact. However working in this way took more time than other, more traditional ways of making decisions.
Read the paper here: