History and Use

One of the main aims of the UKCRC Partnership is to develop a coordinated approach to health research funding. It was agreed that the first step should be creation of a national picture of UK health research. The 2006 UK Health Research Analysis, a major project which was unique in the global context, was the result of this agreement. It was followed by the 2007 analysis of charity funded health research From Donation To Innovation.

To enable these analyses, the HRCS was developed collaboratively by the participating funding organisations. The system was developed after assessing existing classification systems and consultation with UKCRC Partners to ascertain the full breadth of the biomedical and health research portfolios to be analysed.

The HRCS builds on the WHO International Classification of Diseases and a cancer-based system (the Common Scientific Outline) but its breadth of coverage across all types of research and areas of health and disease is unique.

During and subsequent to its development, the HRCS has been used to classify many thousands of research awards covering the full spectrum of health research funding. The system has now been widely adopted by UK research funders to inform research management and to undertake prospective analyses. Several international funding organisations are now successfully using the system.