A new partnership will address Wales's most important public health challenges, strengthen collaboration in research, innovation and academic public health towards improving health and reducing inequalities in Wales.
Public Health Wales and Cardiff University have launched a new research collaboration through Memorandum of Understanding, formalising a longstanding relationship and creates a framework for joint working across a wide range of public health disciplines. .
The three-year agreement is the first organisational-wide arrangement between the two institutions, facilitating opportunities towards developing research that addresses Wales's most important public health challenges and ensuring that the research findings inform public health policy and practice.
The new collaboration was launched at an event at Cardiff University's sbarc|spark building on 2 July, bringing colleagues from both organisations together to mark the start of the collaboration and discuss future opportunities.
The initial areas of focus for the new partnership will include genomics and behavioural science. The collaboration will also support work in climate and environmental health, pandemic preparedness and response, with cross-cutting themes in digital innovation, artificial intelligence and data science, policy and knowledge mobilisation, and workforce development. It will also support existing working research relations between the organisations to maximise value and impact.
By combining expertise, the collaboration hopes to enhance the ability of both organisations to attract external research funding, while delivering high quality, evidence-based research.
Iain Bell, National Director for Public Health Knowledge and Research at Public Health Wales, said: "This new collaboration is an important step in strengthening joint working between Public Health Wales and Cardiff University. It brings together our shared commitment to research, innovation and evidence informed action in a way that can help improve health and reduce inequalities across Wales."
By working together in a more focused and coordinated way, we can build stronger research capacity, support our workforce and make better use of the combined expertise for the benefit of people in Wales.
"This is our first cross-organisational MoU to be established with an academic partner; and we hope we will develop similar collaborations with other Welsh universities."
Professor Steve Riley, Pro Vice Chancellor for the College of Biomedical and Life Sciences at Cardiff University, said:"Cardiff University has a long history of working with Public Health Wales and this Memorandum of Understanding gives us a clear framework to build on that relationship."
