The National Institute for Health Research has underlined its continued commitment to tackling climate change by launching major research calls into delivering more sustainable health and care systems at home and abroad.

Lucy Chappell, the NIHR’s CEO, announced a package of measures at COP26 in November 2021 to support the delivery of a net zero health and social care system, both domestically and further afield. Now, the NIHR is seeking to do more to understand how we can reduce emissions and develop innovative ways of working.

The NIHR is calling for researchers to submit research proposals to evaluate interventions and services to support the delivery of a sustainable UK health and care system - such as cutting emissions from inhalers and anaesthetic gases and reducing single use medical equipment to mitigate the effects of climate change.

To address the impact of climate change outside of the UK, the NIHR has just announced the Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme, which funds interdisciplinary applied global health research, opened a new call for research to investigate how health services in low and middle income countries can adapt to disruption caused by extreme weather events caused by the changing climate.  

Chappell said: “Climate change is one of the defining issues of our generation; its effects will have a huge impact on people’s health and on future economic prosperity. High quality research into this important area will greatly help the health and care systems at home and abroad work towards a more sustainable net zero future, and lead to the development of practical, real-world solutions with demonstrable impact.”