The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is issuing a call for research on dementia. This call extends across the translational pathway, covering the fields of cause, cure and care, including prevention. Seven of the NIHR managed research programmes will be participating.

This call supports the NIHR response to ‘Living well with Dementia – A National Dementia Strategy’, published in February 2009. It also supports the work of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Dementia Research (MAGDR) on ways to improve the volume and impact of dementia research. Reports from the MAGDR subgroups should be available in late March and applicants will need to consider their recommendations, carefully, particularly in respect of topic priorities and better ways of working.

Research proposals should relate to dementia and must be within the remit of one of the seven participating programmes. Applications which support multi-disciplinary and cross-professional collaborations are particularly encouraged. In addition:

• applications that may lead to improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, assessment, treatment, management or care of people with dementia are welcomed;
• research should seek to demonstrate benefits to the health and/or well being of individuals with dementia or their carers and/or improvements in the organisation or delivery of care;
• proposals solely to explore the aetiology or pathophysiology of dementias are out of remit.

The participating programmes are:

• Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME)
• Health Services Research (HSR)
• Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
• Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR)
• Public Health Research (PHR)
• Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB)
• Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO)