By sharing a healthcare challenge, you will help:

• Ensure research activity in NI reflects the real needs of patients and services.
• Highlight areas where uncertainty affects outcomes or contributes to inequalities.
• Connect with research specialists who can help develop ideas into meaningful projects.
• Strengthen a culture of collaboration and evidence‑based improvement across Health and Social Care (HSC).
• Shape the future research priorities for Northern Ireland.

Open to all staff across NI HSC Trusts and GP practices, including:
• Medical, dental, nursing and midwifery staff
• Allied Health Professionals
• Social care staff
• Administrative, operational and managerial staff

Step 1: Tell Us About Your Healthcare Challenge

Anyone working in health or social care; clinical staff, AHPs, nursing and midwifery teams, social care, administrative or managerial staff is encouraged to submit a challenge.

Submissions may come from primary, secondary, or community care.

Submissions are collected via the form at this link, and should outline:

• A clearly defined clinical problem or area of uncertainty
• Who is affected, and in what setting
• What is currently done and what uncertainties remain
• Why this matters for patients, services, or health inequalities

Deadline: 5pm, 19^th June 2026

Step 2: Understanding and Prioritising Challenges

All submissions will be reviewed to understand:

• The importance and impact of the problem
• The potential benefit for patients or services
• The degree of uncertainty or variation
• Whether the challenge could feasibly be explored through research in NI

You may be contacted for more information or clarification at this stage.

Step 3: Collaborative Development Day (‘Sandpit’)

Up to five teams will be invited to a collaborative development session in Belfast in September 2026 (date TBC). This will involve interactive workshops supported by clinicians, researchers, statisticians, trial designers and health economists. The purpose is to co‑develop each challenge into a clear research question, and to think about how best to answer it.

Step 4: Next Steps and Support

Teams will then present their refined ideas to an expert panel. This is not a competition - the panel’s role is to identify which challenges are ready for further development and how best to take these forward with the help of local research experts.

Selected teams will receive:

• Support from research experts
• Help to shape a high‑quality funding application
• Assistance with feasibility or preparatory work, if needed

Step 5: Feedback and Transparency

All applicants will receive constructive feedback. An annual list of topics will be published to support wider engagement and transparency.

No. This call is specifically designed for healthcare staff without formal research training. iREACH health will provide expert support to help develop your idea if it is shortlisted.

A clinical challenge is a problem, uncertainty, or variation in practice where better evidence is needed. It is not a research question or study design.

Examples include:

• Different approaches to the same condition across or within services
• Lack of evidence to guide treatment or service decisions
• Uncertainty affecting patient outcomes, costs, or inequalities

No, educational challenges are not eligible for NI Clinical Research Challenges 2026.  However, this will be kept under review.

No, quality improvement is key to implementation of evidence-based care, but alternative avenues exist to support this. We are aiming to support research to generate new knowledge where a gap exists, not to implement known best practice. We recognise, however, that this can be a grey zone, and are happy to respond to specific queries.

No. The challenge will be judged on importance to clinicians, patients and health services in Northern Ireland, but should be relevant to healthcare in the wider UK or indeed globally. Generalisability will be important to ensuring a project is potentially fundable by NIHR or other UK-wide funders.

Ideally, your challenge would relate to a topic or challenge which has already been identified as a regional priority, but this is not essential when you make your initial submission.  An important aspect of the ‘sandpit day’ will be identifying areas of alignment with identified regional priorities. Here are some links you may find useful when you consider this:

• Programme for Government
• DoH 3 year plan
• Public Health Agency Corporate Plan 2025-2030
• HSC Reset Plan
• QUB Strategy 2030
• NIHR Funding Programmes

On the MS form provided enter short description (max 2 A4 sides including title) outlining:

• The clinical problem or uncertainty
• Why it matters (patients, services, costs, inequalities)
• Where variation or uncertainty exists
• Who is affected and in what setting

Focus on the problem, not the solution.  We are looking for clinical uncertainty, not a study idea.

✅ “We don’t know which approach works best…”
❌ “We should run a randomised trial comparing…”

Be specific. Strong submissions will describe:

• A clear patient group
• A defined setting
• A recognisable problem

Avoid very broad topics like “mental health services” or “long-term conditions”.

Explain why it matters.  Help reviewers understand:

• Why this problem is important now
• Who is affected
• What happens if nothing changes

Patient impact is especially powerful.

Highlight variation or uncertainty. Good examples include:

• Different practices across wards, sites, or teams
• Lack of agreed guidance
• Decisions based on habit rather than evidence

Don’t worry about research language. You do not need to:

• Write a research question
• Suggest a method
• Cite academic papers

Plain language is encouraged.

Staff working in any HSC Trust or GP practice in Northern Ireland, including:

• Clinical staff (medicine, nursing, AHPs, healthcare assistants)
• Service managers

While those in substantive academic posts are not eligible to lead submissions, they can be involved as collaborators.

You will be invited to a ‘sandpit’ development day, where your idea will be brainstormed and refined with support from:

• Clinical trialists
• Research design experts
• Statisticians and health economists
• Research delivery specialists

We will aim to provide contributors with feedback explaining:

• How their challenge was assessed
• Suggestions for whether it should be merged, parked, or progressed through another route

An annual priority list will also be published.

The idea is to develop a partnership between clinicians who understand the clinical challenges and academic experts who know how to develop an idea into a competitively fundable grant application. Submission of a grant application is always a team effort and no one person ‘owns’ the project.  The role of individuals is best determined by discussion and will depend on who has the necessary time and expertise. Not everyone in a healthcare role will be in a position to lead a project, but they will still play an important and integral part in the project team as desired.

It is impossible to predict this, since grant applications are, by their nature, competitive. Often good proposals are not funded, or at least not at the first attempt. The goal, however, is to develop a research proposal which is at a sufficiently high standard to be funded by a national funding programme (e.g. NIHR HTA). There are no guarantees, other than that if you don’t apply, you won’t be successful.

This is a brand new initiative. While we hope it will be an annual event, we will learn and develop further based on feedback from NI Clinical Research Challenges 2026 so there may be changes in subsequent years. We welcome feedback at every stage.

❌ “My idea isn’t big enough”
❌ “Someone must already be researching this”
❌ “I’m not academic enough”

If it affects patient care and lacks clear evidence, it belongs here.

Remember, this is about:

What should we be researching, and why?
Not:
How should we research it?