10: Our people

'Health and social care research benefits all of us. The HRA is crucial to this – protecting people who take part in research and making it easier for researchers to do cutting-edge research in the UK.

The HRA’s first decade has been one of consistency and assurance, rationalisation and proportionality. And this hard work has enabled it to respond rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic with a fast track approvals service for urgent COVID-19 research. We reduced the average research review timelines by 90%, from 62 to 5 days for HRA Approval, enabling over 700 COVID-19 research studies to take place faster.

As the HRA heads towards its teenage years, we will build on our successes and improve the quality of all research by making patients and the public true partners in research and innovation. Because today’s research is tomorrow’s treatments.'

'I have had the privilege of working at the HRA for all of its 10 years, and was also fortunate to be part of the team that established it a decade ago.

The contribution of all that work here has been immense, but I particularly have to call out the work of the volunteers who sit on REC and CAG committees and who review so carefully and professionally health research applications. Also those who make up our Public Involvement Network, who bring a critically important perspective on ensuring that the voice of patients and the wider public is fully part of the way the HRA works.'

'The establishment of the HRA made it possible to create the HRA ‘family’. This allowed us to keep developing and improving the Research Ethics Service and work together on introducing and refining the integrated process for HRA Approval that we have today.

It won’t stop there, of course, but will continue to improve and evolve for the benefit of researchers and research. I am proud to have been a small part of this.'

'I am proud to work with so many members and staff within and outside of the HRA that have a genuine passion for helping to make sure patients maintain confidence in the use of patient data for high quality research and planning purposes.

Knowing that I work on confidentiality issues that matter to people right now makes this a really exciting and motivating reason to start each day!'

'Since I joined the HRA in 2015, the work I am most proud of is being part of the team that approved the PrEP Impact trial, which brought the life-changing PrEP drug to around 26,000 people living with HIV in the UK.'

'I feel extremely proud to see that we have done so much more than we thought we could accomplish in the last 10 years. Now, I can only hope that in the years to come we can still support our researchers to continue to develop vaccines and treatments capable of saving the world.'

'I enjoy my role here immensely and every time I answer the phone, I remember that I am probably the first person at the HRA the caller may speak with. I therefore want to make their contact with us a positive, professional experience. I am proud of the work our organisation does in helping to make our country a world class leader in research.'

'I work in the Finance department, working on Finance and Estates. My proudest moment is my part in making sure we meet our Better Payment Practice Code. This means that we aim to pay at least 95 per cent of invoices within the agreed terms, of 30 days, unless there is a dispute.'

'I was attracted to the HRA because we place public involvement at the centre of our mission to protect and promote the interests of people taking part in research.

I was particularly impressed by my manager’s response to my request for adjustments to support me due to my disabilities for my interview. Having a member of the Public Involvement network, and the HRA Equality Diversity and Inclusion manager on the interview panel reinforced my impression of the HRA as a truly inclusive employer.'

'My proudest moment while working at the HRA is when I met a research participant who told me:

‘Knowing that an organisation like HRA exists makes me feel confident to take part in research. It is only after observing an Ethics Committee meeting that I decided to take part in research.’

'I’ve served on “the good ship HRA” and its predecessors for many decades and am now chair of Oxford A REC. Throughout my time, the HRA and its members have tried to set high standards of review and then measure and check performance.

We have been our own critic through our operations and audit departments and amongst ourselves through the Shared Ethical Debate programme. I’d argue that this has helped us set an example of good practice, which has been the envy of others in this field.

Special thanks to Janet Wisely for her balanced and pragmatic leadership and those in our training team. Floreat HRA.'

'I've been an expert member of London-Bloomsbury since 2016, and chair since 2021. I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with incredibly talented individuals from so many different areas of life. Everyone I have worked with at London-Bloomsbury has truly expressed a passion for the work of ethical review.'

'I sit on a London panel with such a wide range of experts and insights when reviewing research protocols, every meeting is very interesting and rewarding to attend.

I am proud and honoured to be part of a dedicated committee with members who are genuinely committed to supporting the aims of the research ethics service.'

'I have been involved with Research Ethics Committees (RECs) for 32 years now. So, for me HRA is newcomer: a welcome one that has done good work – long may it continue.

What has made me proud to be involved? When a researcher admitted that she had struggled to write her application. She had come to us thinking we were a barrier to be got round and found we saw our job as being to help foster good research.

Most people don’t know about us. Which is a shame, because we do important work: we help to make sure that the research done in the UK is first class.'

'I am really proud to be a member of the Confidentiality Advisory Group of the HRA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how vital having high quality routinely collected data is and how quickly it can be used to inform patient care, public health interventions and policy for the immediate benefit to the public and patients. If the HRA and CAG infrastructure were not in existence before the pandemic, then the vital COVID-19 research would not have been able to have been conducted in a such timely manner.

I hope that we can learn from the rapid processes that happened during the pandemic to improve and streamline approvals in the future.'

'I really value working with the Health Research Authority and am valued in return. Its work with the public is never a box tick exercise.

If we can get Public Involvement good practice at organisational level, then it will mean a better experience for those participating in research, whether participants or public members working with research teams as equal partners. Research becomes accessible and benefits the public more.'

'I joined the HRA in April 2021, so what was at the forefront in my mind was the vaccine programme. It was incredible to hear the HRA’s role in simplifying the process of doing research by joining up the multiple agencies and institutions involved to facilitate collaboration and harmonisation. The value of this was realised in our rapid response to the pandemic and ability to get safe vaccines from the bench to patients in a timeframe never before thought possible.'

'The HRA is fortunate in being able to call on academics, patients, public and other stakeholders to help it develop policy and guidelines that improve the ethics of clinical and social care research.'