Two RCSI researchers have been awarded funding totalling more than €5 million by the Health Research Board (HRB) under the Applied Programme Awards scheme.

The funding is part of an overall investment of €20m by the HRB divided across eight new projects to support high-quality, team-based applied research that will lead to a step-change in practice and policy to deliver outcomes for the health system, population health, or for service users and carers.

The successful RCSI lead applicants were:

• Dr Michelle Flood, Senior Lecturer, RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences for ‘Sjögren’s beyond dry eye: Advancing policy and practice through co-creation of integrated care journeys and education for health professionals – The SYNERG-IE Programme’. SYNERG-IE is a multidisciplinary research programme designed in partnership with Sjögren’s Ireland that aims to address longstanding challenges in the recognition, diagnosis, and management of Sjögren's. This programme will adopt a collaborative and inclusive approach, combining the skills of multidisciplinary researchers, the insights of patients, and the needs of healthcare professionals and policymakers to bring about transformative change in Sjögren's care and research.
• Professor David Cotter, Professor of Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry RCSI for ‘VISTA: VISion To Action for promoting mental health and recovery. An Implementation Science approach to "Sharing the Vision" – Ireland's national mental health policy’. The VISTA programme aims to implement Sharing the Vision’s recommendations. The multidisciplinary team, comprising clinician researchers, non-clinical researchers, policy experts, sociology, health economics, public and patient involvement (PPI) and implementation science for knowledge translation, is a first for mental-health research in Ireland. It aims to produce research that will ultimately result in improved outcomes in mental health in Ireland.

Professor Fergal O’Brien, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at RCSI, said: “I extend my congratulations to the two RCSI awardees on their success in the highly competitive HRB Applied Programme Awards. Both projects are reflective of RCSI’s commitment to pioneering research that promises significant advances in healthcare practices and policies, and adopting a multidisciplinary approach.

“It is fantastic to see such a strong public and patient involvement (PPI) element in both programmes, aligned with our strategic objectives to ensure our research is driven by real-world needs and experiences. I look forward to the advancements these projects will bring to the fields of mental health and autoimmune diseases.”

Commenting on the scheme, Dr Mairead O’Driscoll, Chief Executive at the Health Research Board, said: “The successful projects in this scheme are carefully aligned with the aims of not only the HRB Strategy, but also wider Department of Health and EU research priorities. It was also particularly pleasing to see that many of the awards built on previous HRB-funded work, which indicates a coherence among our combined efforts to maximise the impact of Ireland’s health research investments.”