Guidance

Health and care research and development framework for pandemic preparedness, prevention and response

Published 8 July 2025

Introduction

The UK government’s health and care research and development framework for pandemic preparedness, prevention and response (‘the framework’) outlines the strategic themes and governance for research funding prior to and in the event of a pandemic.

The framework was developed by a group of cross-government research funders, public sector research establishments, public health bodies, industry and academia. This is a cross-UK framework and governance structure including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Background and aims

In all pandemics and major epidemics, the initial response relies on limited information. The primary goals of research are to:

• understand the pathogen and disease
• improve information for policy and clinical decision-making
• develop and improve tools and treatments to prevent and mitigate its effects

The Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO’s) technical report on the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK outlines many lessons for future CMOs, chief scientific advisers (CSAs) and health leaders facing a disease outbreak. These include:

• enabling and facilitating co-ordination across funders to prioritise research questions and ensure funding is not duplicated
• multiple co-ordinated approaches to funding or commissioning new research to ensure prioritised research is rapidly funded
• ensuring strong existing research infrastructure and capacity (with appropriate funding) that can pivot in an emergency

Enabling research and development collaboration

To apply the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, a group including the UK government funders has developed a research framework - shown in figure 1 in ‘The framework’ section below - and a governance structure to aid cross-funder collaboration. This work directly supports ‘strategic enabler 2’ of the UK Biological Security Strategy:

A world-class science base, resilient S&T [science and technology] capabilities against a spectrum of threats, and a thriving health and life sciences sector, increasing trade and stimulating growth and investment across the UK.  

The aim of the framework and governance structure is to enable research funders to collaborate more effectively by determining:

• research priorities
• research infrastructure needs
• appropriate funding routes

This will enable rapid delivery of research to support the UK’s preparedness and response to pandemic threats and contribute to improving global health security.

This framework is for research and development (R&D) only, including investment in innovation through industry. It does not include manufacturing.

The framework and governance structure were developed by a cross-government group representing:

• Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) 
• UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) 
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) 
• Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)
• Government Office for Science (Go-Science)
• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
• Ministry of Defence (MoD)
• Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL)
• Home Office (HO)
• the offices of the Chief Scientific Advisers (CSAs) or equivalent for England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

This was followed by cross-government and external engagement, including between:

• the NHS
• academia
• industry associations and other industry
• the charity sector
• all 4 nations’ CSAs and CMOs

Prevention, early detection and response is the most effective way to prevent diseases emerging and spreading. Supporting research for preparedness and response internationally, including with low and middle income countries, is in the global and national interest but is not within the scope of this framework. Further information on co-ordination with international research funders is below, in the section ‘Co-ordination with international R&D funding’.

The framework

The framework brings together all the health and care research areas for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and lists the infrastructure needed to deliver this research. This is presented in figure 1, below.

Figure 1: health and care research and development framework for pandemic preparedness, prevention and response

The framework covers priority viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens and parasites of epidemic and pandemic potential identified by UKHSA as a threat to the UK population, including as yet unknown pathogens (‘disease X’). It is applicable to all routes of transmission (direct contact, fomites, oral, aerosol, sexual, blood and vector borne), all population groups (age, ethnicity, pregnancy, clinical vulnerabilities, and so on) and to all parts of the UK.

The framework spans different research disciplines, including but not limited to:

• behavioural science 
• pathogen biology 
• modelling 
• economics 
• epidemiology
• immunology
• engineering  
• anthropology 
• translational medicine

Pillars of a response to biological risks

The 4 principal themes, or ‘pillars’, of the visual framework are those identified in the UK Biological Security Strategy:

• understand (‘Understand the biological risks we face today and could face in the future’)
• prevent (‘Prevent biological risks from emerging (where possible) or from threatening the UK and UK interests’)
• detect (‘Detect, characterise and report biological risks when they do emerge as early and reliably as possible’)
• respond (‘Respond to biological risks that have reached the UK or UK interests to lessen their impact and to enable a rapid return to business as usual’)

These are presented on the upper row of the visual framework.

Research themes

There are 13 themes in total that summarise the necessary science and research evidence for pandemic preparedness and response. They are presented on the visual framework underneath the 4 ‘pillars’ and as cross-cutting themes. The underpinning ‘research infrastructure’ capabilities are presented at the bottom of the visual framework.  

Research areas for a new emerging threat

There are 4 important areas of understanding new and emerging pathogens and how they can affect us. These are presented on the framework underneath the ‘Understand’ pillar on the left side of figure 1.

The 4 research themes are:

• pathogen emergence (understanding how infections emerge and adapt to infect humans)
• transmission dynamics (understanding how infections spread between people, animals and the environment)
• biological characterisation (understanding of the nature of the pathogen and how it behaves)
• clinical characterisation (understanding how the infection affects people, how severe it is and who is most at risk)

Research areas for prevention, detection and response

Prior to and in the event of a pandemic, there are 3 research priorities that span all 3 pillars of ‘Prevent’, ‘Detect’ and ‘Respond’.

These are:

• surveillance methods (improving how we identify infections, spot them early and monitor their spread)
• development and evaluation of public health and social measures (understanding what works to prevent the spread of infections)
• health systems and health and care workforce interventions (investigating how to effectively deliver health and care services in a pandemic, how to support health and care workers, and how to enable the health system to recovery rapidly)

The other 3 research themes are specific to individual pillars, as follows:

• prevent: development and evaluation of vaccines (creating and testing vaccines to reduce the severity of infections or prevent them altogether)
• detect: development and evaluation of diagnostics (creating and testing tests to find out who is infected or contaminated)
• respond: development and evaluation of therapeutics (finding and testing treatments to help people recover from the disease)

Cross-cutting research themes

Three other themes cross cut all pillars of the framework (understand, prevent, detect and respond). These are presented near the bottom of the visual framework. These are:

• understanding and mitigating short-and-longer term health, social and economic impacts (investigating how the infection affects people’s lives, jobs and wellbeing)
• understanding public attitudes and behaviours (learning how people feel and act in response to an infectious disease threat)
• understanding risks to vulnerable groups and reducing inequalities (identifying who is most at risk and understanding how to make sure they get the help they need)

Capabilities and infrastructure

The UK science and research ecosystem is underpinned by supporting capabilities and infrastructure. These are not necessarily owned or delivered by the research funders but are needed to support new pandemic preparedness and response research. The research capabilities and infrastructure are detailed on the bottom row of the framework and comprise:

• laboratory facilities, including high containment (laboratory capacity including special laboratories with strict safety rules to study dangerous pathogens)
• pre-clinical discovery and clinical development (capability to deliver research to understand the pathogen and disease, find promising diagnostics, drugs or vaccines - and test these in people through clinical trials and understand how to use them in the health system)
• social and behavioural sciences (expertise and tools to study how people think, feel and act)
• regulation and ethics (independent assessment functions to ensure research follows laws and protects people’s rights, such as the Health Research Authority and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency)
• surveillance and data systems (tools and systems for tracking health and disease data such as those provided through UKHSA)

The governance structure underpinning the framework, explained in the ‘Domestic governance structure’ section below, enables co-ordination to prioritise research questions and reduce duplication. It also provides a central co-ordinating mechanism to engage with policymakers meeting specific departmental needs to ensure that scientific advice is based on the best research.

Domestic governance structure

We have implemented a new governance structure to enable government funders to co-ordinate R&D investments across the framework, formed of:

• Strategic Funders Forum: senior-level oversight of research funding for preparedness and response
• Preparedness Funders Forum: working level co-ordination of preparedness research funding
• Response Funders Forum: working level co-ordination of research funding in response to a major outbreak

The governance structure has 3 modes:

• the ‘green’ preparedness mode, which runs in normal circumstances
• the ‘amber’ response mode, which is triggered if there is an escalating risk of a major outbreak
• the ‘red’ response mode, which is triggered by a significant outbreak with widespread human-to-human transmission

The Preparedness Funders Forum meets regularly under the ‘green’ preparedness mode and is responsible for preparedness across all threat pathogens. The Strategic Funders Forum and Response Funders Forum only meet in the event of an escalating threat or significant outbreak and the meetings will be pathogen or outbreak specific. In ‘amber’ or ‘red’ mode, the funders forums may also discuss multiple concurrent outbreaks and cover domestic and international priorities or support other government department needs and actions.

Strategic Funders Forum

The Strategic Funders Forum, comprised of CSAs, executive chairs of UKRI funding agencies, UKHSA and Go-Science, will meet annually to discuss strategic direction of pandemic preparedness and response research, and also meet in response to a new or growing threat.

Groups are co-chaired by DHSC and UKRI with additional support from Defra, FCDO or MoD, depending on the type and source of the outbreak.

In the event of an escalating outbreak, the Strategic Funders Forum will agree the level of R&D response required to an escalating outbreak and provide funding authority at pace for:

• key research priorities for immediate investigation
• the scale and timeframe for any targeted research activity
• pivoting or activating necessary infrastructure
• trigger the release of funds
• determine the level of research response merited by an outbreak
• ensure join-up with scientific advice mechanisms and the operational response

Preparedness Funders Forum

The Preparedness Funders Forum will meet regularly to:

• create a shared vision for UK epidemic preparedness and response and its implementation, including reviewing the scope of the framework
• co-ordinate research and development funding and infrastructure for pandemic preparedness and response, to support the UK to be adequately prepared for and to respond to infectious disease threats
• ensure the work responds to and contributes to international events and initiatives
• ensure that the research process is open, and that outputs of research be shared, interpreted and translated into scientific advice openly and at speed to support practical decision-making
• ensure that industry is engaged and incentivised to deliver key aspects of the framework, including the development of medical counter measures in priority areas

Response Funders Forum

Comprised of working-level officials of all funders and relevant public sector research establishments (PSREs), the Response Funders Forum will enact the decisions of the Strategic Funders Forum.

The Response Funders Forum will identify delivery mechanisms to meet priority needs to the appropriate timeframe, for example:

• agree department or agency leadership for activities and secure resources and capabilities for delivery
• agree co-funding arrangements to enable a rapid and integrated response, building on frameworks developed via the preparedness group
• ensure that evidence reviews and new research and development programmes are rapidly activated
• facilitate research evidence being used for operational response

Co-ordination with international R&D funding

The UK funds R&D to support prevention, preparedness, detection and rapid response to outbreaks of deadly diseases in vulnerable countries to help protect lives and livelihoods and prevent epidemic and pandemic spread, including to the UK. We do this through research partnerships such as the international Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and with low and middle-income country (LMIC) organisations and their UK partners.

The UK International R&D Funders Group for Outbreak and Epidemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response meets regularly. Led by FCDO, with many of the same members as the Preparedness Funders Forum, its purpose is to:

• enhance coherence and relevance of the UK’s support to research for priority needs on outbreak, epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response with LMICs
• help ensure that UK-focused R&D is informing and informed by international efforts

It is linked to the cross-government Epithreats Group, which is convened by FCDO to provide a horizon-scanning, monitoring and risk-assessment function in relation to emerging epidemic threats, and to ensure evidence-based, timely and proportionate responses from across HM Government, when required.

The UK is also an active member of GLoPID-R, the international network bringing together funders investing in research related to new or re-emerging infectious diseases, aiming to increase preparedness and speed up the research response to outbreaks with pandemic potential.

Co-ordination with other science committees and groups  

The health and care research and development framework for pandemic preparedness, prevention and response and its associated governance group are separate from, but complementary to, groups such as the Social and Behavioural Science for Emergencies (SBSE) Steering Group and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.