We are pleased to share the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) announcement of continued investment in the PHIRST scheme, supporting real world evaluations to improve public health interventions. Read the announcement in full.

The funding award will support the 4 original PHIRSTs: Connect, Fusion, Insight and South Bank to continue conducting evaluations as part of the scheme for a further 5 years, until 2030.

The award also funds 2 new PHIRSTs: EMPower and REACH.

These 6 teams join PHIRST Light and PHIRST LiLaC (contracted until 2027), and PHIRST Elevate and PHIRST PHRESH (contracted until 2029).

The PHIRST scheme is part of the NIHR’s Public Health Research programme. It was first commissioned in 2020 to provide public health teams within local government to access academic expertise to evaluate public health initiatives. As described by Helen Walters who was an NIHR Public Health Consultant Advisor at the time of the schemes creation:

When I was a Director of Public Health in London I knew that my team were delivering innovative schemes that affected large numbers of people. Our hope was that the schemes would improve health and reduce the health inequalities experienced by some highly deprived populations. But we didn’t really know whether they were achieving this.

The PHIRST scheme accepts applications from across the UK: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In order to help build the public health evidence base details of all PHIRST evaluations are freely available. Browse all PHIRST evaluations.

Learn more about each PHIRST:

• Connect
• Elevate
• EMPower
• Fusion
• Insight
• Light
• LiLaC
• PHRESH
• REACH
• South Bank