The NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme is inviting outline applications for research proposals that are concerned with the day-to-day practice of health and care service staff, and that have the potential to have an impact on the health or wellbeing of patients and users of health and care services.
As a researcher-led programme, RfPB does not specify topics for research but instead encourages proposals for projects that address a wide range of health service issues and challenges.
The programme aims to fund high quality quantitative and qualitative research with a clear trajectory to patient benefit. It particularly encourages applications that have a strong element of interaction with patients and the public and that have been conceived in association with a relevant group of service users.
This is a two-stage, commissioned funding opportunity. To apply for the first stage you should submit an outline application. If invited to the second stage, you will then need to complete a full application.
RfPB funding opportunities
RfPB is participating in the following three funding opportunities with separate applications on the awards management system. Applicants should read each one carefully before applying to the relevant one.
RfPB researcher-led 2025/425
This is RfPB’s main funding opportunity. Please see the RfPB webpage for details about the overall programme remit and eligibility criteria.
Highlight notice
RfPB is currently participating in the following highlight notice:
- Yorkshire and the North East and North West Regional Priorities
- Areas of Research Interest 3
- Invasive Lobular Carcinoma (Lobular Breast Cancer)
- Work and Health
Please see the regional priorities highlight notice tab for further information.
RfPB Commissioned – NIHR James Lind Alliance (JLA) rolling funding opportunity 2025/426
NIHR RfPB is interested in receiving applications which address any of the James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) research priorities. In order to apply you will need to carefully review the NIHR JLA specification document. Proposals received into this funding opportunity must be within the remit of the RfPB programme.
Palliative and end of life care – additional research priorities
In 2025 a refresh of the JLA Palliative and End of Life Care Priority Setting Partnership was led by Marie Curie to update the research priorities of carers, patients and health and social care professionals. The top priority around improving care for people with dementia was highlighted in a previous JLA rolling funding opportunity and remains a continuing area of research interest to the NIHR. For this funding opportunity, four additional priorities identified through the refresh are of interest. These are how palliative and end of life care can:
- enable people to die well at home; what helps or hinders the delivery of care at home and what skills do staff (priority 3) and carers (priority 7) need
- better meet the needs of people with multiple health conditions (priority 5), and
- better meet the needs of people who live alone or are socially isolated (priority 10).
Suggested areas of interest related to these priorities include, but are not limited to, the evaluation of interventions to:
- deliver high quality, equitable and integrated community support including hospice at home provisions
- upskill health and social care staff to address gaps in knowledge within and between services
- evaluate the impacts of upskilling informal carers
- develop care pathways that integrate palliative and end of life care to better support the changing and growing needs of an increased number of people receiving care
- reduce inequities in care and access to care and support services
- improve access to healthcare records and information for individuals in different settings and health and care staff across services
- manage polypharmacy in those with multiple conditions
- evaluate and mitigate the physical, cognitive and emotional impacts of isolation on individuals and their carers
- improve access to appropriate medication at all times in the community
Supplementary information, such as a reference list of reviews and the original JLA data, can be viewed on the Marie Curie website.
Through the JLA PSP rolling funding opportunity, we would welcome applications addressing these research priorities, although applications are not restricted to or required to include these priorities.
RfPB Commissioned – NIHR NICE rolling funding opportunity 2025/427
NIHR RfPB is interested in receiving applications to meet recommendations in research identified in NICE guidance that has been published or updated in the last 5 years.
In order to apply you will need to carefully review the NIHR NICE specification document.
Proposals received into this funding opportunity must be within the remit of the RfPB programme.
Wearable technologies in identifying the risk of falls
NG249 – Falls: assessment and prevention in older people and in people 50 and over at higher risk
Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of wearable technologies in identifying all people aged 65 and over and people aged 50-64, at a higher risk of falls within community care settings.
Factors that could increase the risk of falls include long-term health conditions that impact on a person’s daily life such as arthritis, dementia, diabetes or Parkinson’s disease; having had a stroke; and having a learning disability.
Existing evidence shows that no single fall risk assessment or conventional gait and balance tool can accurately predict a person’s risk of falls. Wearable technologies (including standalone sensors and smartphones) have the potential to not only identify those most at risk, but to identify specific gait or balance impairments, monitor and improve adherence to exercise interventions and detect fall events, to reduce the risk of falls and fall related injuries.
Correctly implemented, effective wearable technologies could support the self-assessment of falls risk by patients at scale and the improved efficiency and delivery of falls services including diagnosis and treatment.
Wearables may also serve to increase health inequalities and research proposals should consider the barriers to digital inclusion faced by older people and those living with frailty and how to overcome these.
Through this NICE rolling funding opportunity, we would welcome applications that generate high quality evidence to support a recommendation for the use of wearables, although applications are not restricted to this area of research and are not required to include this research priority.
Visit funding web page
(https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/research-patient-benefit-november-2025/2025425-2025426-2025437)
