Professor Sir Terence Stephenson steps down as HRA Chair

1. Celebrating and talking about our success

I think the profile of the Health Research Authority has risen greatly, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We responded quickly, without lowering our standards, approving studies in hours that would normally take weeks.

The efforts of staff and our volunteers on Research Ethics Committees and the Confidentiality Advisory Group enabled researchers in the UK to make the single biggest contribution to the global fight against COVID-19.

We’re now certainly seen as a critical part of the success of the UK life sciences industry.

2. New IT systems

Our work on the Research Systems programme has completely dominated most of my two terms as Chair, but we have made huge progress.

Before Christmas we received the fantastic news that the programme received an amber rating in our ‘alpha’ service assessment from the Government Digital Service, with 12 of the 15 service standards they review rated as green.

This means we can move on to something called the ‘private beta’ phase where we will start to build the new systems for real and test them with a bigger group of users.

It has been a huge team effort to get to this stage and I was particularly pleased that we demonstrated that we have put user needs at the heart of the programme.

3. Keeping a close eye on the finances

As an arm’s-length body of the Department of Health and Social Care we are subject to comprehensive spending reviews.

These are difficult processes to go through for organisations, but the Health Research Authority has done really well in some very tight reviews.

We’ve managed to successfully make the case to maintain our funding levels and we are seen as a critical point of success (or failure) and need the right resources to keep doing what we do. This is something we should be really proud of.

4. Being more proportional

The COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to think outside the box and do things differently.

Before the pandemic we had planned to review how student research was carried out in the UK. However, with the sudden surge of crucial COVID-19 research studies to review we took the opportunity to accelerate our plans.

By pausing the review of student research applications and introducing new eligibility criteria we were able to create much needed capacity to review urgent COVID-19 research.

This proportional approach has helped us prioritise our resource in areas where they are most needed and do the most amount of good.

5. Upstreaming using web and algorithms

Another goal was upstreaming using online assistance and algorithms to decrease the demand for verbal advice from HRA staff or emails or written advice. And of course, the new Research Systems Programme, the replacement for IRAS (Integrated Research Application System), is a huge part of that. So we are tackling that.

6. Cost recovery

We examined the possibility of charging for our services like other arm’s length bodies do.

We decided that we did not want to confuse ethics with payments, and for now we think that’s the right thing to do.

Of course, there are other options that we could explore in the future if we decide to look at this again.

7. Transparency

Ensuring that research is carried out transparently was a key part of our strategy for 2022-25.

As part of our Make it Public work we have been campaigning for transparency to be a legal requirement for clinical trials.

We have been part of developing the UK’s updated Clinical Trials regulations alongside the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The updated regulations will be debated in parliament in the next few weeks, and for the first time it will be a legal requirement to register clinical trials on a World Health Organization (WHO) recognised public register, and to publish a summary of results within 12 months of the end of the trial.

Offering to share trial findings with participants in a timely way, and in language which they can understand will also be required by law.

This is a huge step forward for research transparency.

8. Streamlining our services

We have transformed the way that our Research Ethics Committees work.

Our committees now all meet remotely and review documents online. It has saved a huge amount of time and money printing out, collating and posting out huge bundles of documents.

This has enabled us to work more efficiently, with 1,329 REC meetings held across the UK in 2024, all made possible by a staggering 75,000 hours of volunteering.

We simply could not function as an organisation without them and I want to say a personal thank you to each and every one of our amazing volunteers.

9. Confidentiality Advisory Group

The Confidentiality Advisory Group provide advice to researchers in what is a very complicated landscape. As such a small group it is impossible for them to resolve all of the big issues around access to data for health research.

What they have done, and continue to do, is play a key role in safeguarding patient data when it comes to research applications.

10. Working patterns for staff

The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to rethink our working patterns overnight.

We all moved to working online and that has stayed with us. More than 90% of our staff now work from home.

That has meant we’ve had to change some of our ways of working, but it has very quickly become business as usual.

Not only does remote working give staff greater flexibility with their work-life balance, it also makes the HRA a really attractive place to work.