Our research strategy to 2030
In our charity strategy, Leading transformation in kidney health, we have pledged to drive a major surge in the UK kidney research effort. To deliver this, we are changing how we do things.
We will continue to fund high quality kidney research, but we will also strengthen and develop our role as an enabler, thought-leader, disrupter and collaborator. We will be a research organisation that brings groups together, supports innovation and challenges the status quo. We will be a catalyst that ignites kidney research with new investment, new capacity, new ideas and new energy.
Our Research Strategy sets objectives for the broad scope of knowledge we must accumulate and utilise through research. However, to deliver change for people affected by kidney disease, we also need to focus.
The research journey
Related renal research reports
UK Renal Research Strategy
The ‘Kidney Health: Delivering Excellence (2013)’ report recommended that a research strategy for kidney disease was developed. The UKKRC produced the first UK Renal Research Strategy in 2016.
The strategy sets out aims and recommendations which are intended to unite the whole kidney (renal) professional and patient community and to provide information and evidence for funders, policymakers and those helping to support the next generation of researchers.
Described as a ‘first of its kind’ in terms of the way it was developed through community collaboration, it stated that “concerted action from many parties over the next five to ten years will be needed to realise these aims.” So, three years on from the launch of the strategy, a progress review was undertaken. The aim of the review was to gather opinions from across our community, reignite the drive to realise our ambitions and ensure the ongoing relevance of the strategy in a changing renal landscape.
Kidney health inequalities in the United Kingdom: reflecting on the past, reducing in the future
Twenty years ago evidence emerged in the UK that kidney disease was a particular problem amongst minority ethnic groups; people from minority ethnic groups are more likely to develop kidney failure and are less likely to receive a kidney transplant. Now we recognise that there are wider individual and societal factors which underlie kidney health inequalities, such as extremes of age, social deprivation and health literacy.
Kidney Research UK commissioned an independent report. The report describes our current and growing knowledge of the processes influencing kidney health inequalities. It presents a range of recommendations for the whole renal community to address the evidence gaps through research.
We have summarised the outcomes from the Kidney health inequalities in the United Kingdom report into a friendly to read version.
Launched in March 2019, this provides recommendations for how the broader community (researchers, policy-makers and parliamentarians) can help address these inequalities.
Renal research: from a pioneering past to a positive future for kidney patients
The Pioneering Past report highlights groundbreaking research taking place around the UK, and explains how government can help support the new UK Renal Research Strategy. This strategy sets out the renal community’s vision of how the challenges facing renal research should be tackled in a collaborative manner in order to help kidney patients live longer, healthier lives.
The report celebrates breakthroughs in research, tells the story of real people who have been affected by kidney disease, and sets out what is needed to enable more breakthroughs in future generations.
Pioneering renal research in Scotland
The Scotland supplement focuses on the scale of the ‘kidney problem’, with around 175,000 people in Scotland living with a kidney impairment of some sort and 5,000 people on renal replacement therapy (dialysis or transplant).
Pioneering renal research in Wales
Since 1985 some £2m has been invested in renal research in Wales by Kidney Research UK. The report illustrates the very successful partnership with the Health and Care Research Wales funded Wales Kidney Research Unit (WKRU).
