Our aims, vision and
strategic priorities
We invest in those who have great ideas and methods for improving the health and wellbeing of older people and in making the connections which can help them to flourish.
Context
The Dunhill Medical Trust has a long history of funding some of the best of the UK’s academic and clinical research into understanding the mechanisms of ageing and treating age-related diseases and frailty, as well as supporting community-based organisations which are working to enhance the lives of those who find they need extra support in later life. In working with these two communities, we are uniquely placed to bring them together to inform and influence the collective understanding of “what works”.
You can also download this framework as a pdf document.
Our unique role and key aims
We’re committed to applying our resources to inspiring and enabling academic researchers (from across the disciplinary range) and health and social care professionals to apply their knowledge and skills to:
- improving the quality of life, functional capacity and well-being for older people now, or
- creating the context for change in the future: preventing, delaying or reducing future health and social care requirements.
We also want to play our part in informing and influencing the collective understanding of “what works” and enabling community organisations to develop innovative, evidence-led and best practice ways of delivering housing, care and support for older people and in driving the systemic change needed to secure a healthier later life for us all.
Key aim #1
To inspire and enable academic researchers (from across the disciplinary spectrum) and health and social care professionals to apply their knowledge and skills to improving the quality of life, functional capacity and well-being for older people. This could be now, or creation of the context of change for the future.
We’ll do this by…
- Identifying the important, but perhaps less well-funded, areas of research and directing our attention and resources to ensuring that they receive the focus and support that they need.
- Backing well-designed research which is imaginative, novel and acknowledges that the complexity of the issues involved often need a multi-disciplinary approach if it is to have real and positive impact on the lives of older people.
- Providing support to encourage leading investigators from all relevant disciplines to undertake work on ageing.
- Providing support to institutions which can demonstrate leadership in and a long-term commitment to ageing-related research.
- Providing support that delivers excellence in doctoral researcher training in ageing-related research.
- Providing support for post-doctoral academics and research-active health and social care professionals so that trained PhD level investigators in ageing are not lost to other disciplines.
- Convening networking events and organising meetings of specialists of varied disciplines and professions to scope the future priorities for ageing-related research and foster the collaborations that will tackle the challenges of delivering our strategic goals to improve health in later life.
- Providing funding to support clear pathways to engagement and impact with community-led organisations.
Principles
We know that if the systemic change needed to improve the health and social care of older people is to be achieved in the long term, we need to invest in creating sustained capacity in academic and clinical research. Our support for researchers is organised around five key principles.
- Involvement and engagement. We expect older people’s views to be considered and, at a minimum, for the researchers we support to be actively involved in public engagement activities. No matter how “cutting edge” or complex the research, the ultimate beneficiary can offer unique and valuable insights in its design, implementation, communication, future prioritisation or evaluation.
- Making connections; convening networks. We know we can promote innovation and contribute to making a real difference by connecting researchers from different disciplines with each other and with those working in professional practice and the community.
- Multi-disciplinarity. Many of the problems we are trying to understand and address require examination from a variety of perspectives and the input of multiple stakeholders if they are to work and lead to practical benefit. Good and effective collaboration does not come without challenges but is essential if multi-dimensional problems are to be solved.
- Equality and diversity. It is important to access and nurture the best talent and equality and diversity are integral to driving innovation and opportunity and to achieving excellence in research. We prefer to work with organisations and teams which are committed to nurturing equal and diverse cultures.
- Flexibility. While we have set out our overall strategic framework and
will plan the deployment of our resources around our published
priorities, from time to time, issues will arise which will require an agile
and speedy response.
Key aim #2
To inform and influence the collective understanding of “what works” and to enable community-led organisations to develop innovative, evidence-informed and best practice ways of delivering care and support for older people and drive the systemic change needed to secure a healthier later life for us all.
We’ll do this by…
- Developing innovative, cross-sector partnerships – particularly with the research community – which are, or have the potential to be, transformational for the organisation or sector or transformational for the understanding of the issue. This may involve traditional grant funding models but also more innovative forms of finance.
- Supporting evidence-informed, people-centred community programmes which make full use of the range of community assets – in particular, those which create age-friendly environments, connect older people to their wider community and enable them to stay in their own homes for longer.
- Providing targeted funding to community-led organisations to enable them to develop their capabilities in developing financial sustainability, impact evaluation and communication.
- Being proactive in supporting and developing productive networks, in particular aiding the development of relationships between the academic and practitioner communities.
- Joining forces with high profile representative bodies to share the outcomes of our research grants and community-based projects.
Principles
We know that if community organisations are to take their rightful place at the heart of an improved system of health and social care for older people, we need to invest in ensuring that they have the capacity, supportive networks and access to a robust evidence base to do so. Our support for community organisations is organised around five key principles.
- Involvement and engagement with users. We expect
services and interventions to be demonstrably based on
principles of co-production or an existing model where the
views of older people are at the heart. - Making connections; convening networks. We know we can
help to make a real difference by connecting those working in
professional practice and the community with the research
base and we will ensure that they are properly recognised, both
financially and otherwise, for their participation and
contribution. - Evidence-gathering and evidence-sharing. We will ensure
that community organisations have the support and resources
they need to develop a robust evidence base around the
services they develop and provide. We want community teams
to be clear on how learning can be shared and demonstrate a
willingness to collaborate and share. - Equity and diversity. We prefer to work with organisations and
teams which are committed to nurturing equitable and diverse
cultures. - Flexibility. While we have set out our overall strategic
framework and will plan the deployment of our resources
around our published priorities, from time-to-time issues will
arise which will require an agile and speedy response.
Our ways of working
We strive to be a transparent, learning organisation. We aim to collect and share the outcomes of our grant recipients’ work and make them openly available, as well as ensuring that our staff and trustees are well-equipped to support the work of our grant-holders.
We’ll do this by:
- Ensuring that our stakeholders are aware of the support we provide
– both financial and non-financial – and providing opportunities to
enable them to share their stories, ideas and learning with others. - Investing in our office systems and developing our staff to achieve
a better balance between evaluating applications and providing
high quality support, relationship-building and communication of
our impact. - Equipping our staff with the opportunities, tools and resources to
enable them to grow their networks, capabilities, knowledge and
confidence. - Investing in practical and helpful use of technology so that our staff
and other stakeholders can access what they need from us –
anytime and anywhere. - Respecting our legacy of prudent, yet visionary, stewardship. We
will ensure that we continue to develop this legacy, keeping our
governance procedures up-to-date and proportionate, our
operational procedures effective, efficient, helpful and flexible and
making imaginative and appropriate use of our endowment.
Our priorities
We will support high quality academic and clinical research proposals
that:
- improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of ageing and age-related disease;
- target the social determinants of healthy life expectancy;
- improve the quality of life for older people, in particular:
- in developing and delivering suitable living environments;
- addressing issues of age-related vision, hearing and oral health;
- have the potential to prevent, delay or reduce future health and social
care requirements, in particular, improve the ability to maintain
functional independence for older adults.
We will be supporting a smaller number of larger community programmes, focusing in particular on those which create age-friendly living environments, connect older people to the wider community and enable them to stay in their own homes for longer. In doing so, we will also continue to support targeted initiatives arising from our Older People’s Care Improvement Initiative.
We will support those organisations and programmes to engage more closely with the research base by providing co-funding and networking opportunities.
Measuring success
Developing evidence, tracking outcomes, celebrating success and making our contribution to influencing change is important to us but we work in a large and complex system with a diverse range of problems to solve. We want to work alongside you and will flex and adapt our approach as we learn together.
We are sometimes asked how we know we are succeeding. It’s quite a challenge for a funder of such a diverse range of activities to have a single set of “performance indicators” to track and measure over time. Rather, our approach is to work with each of our grant-holders to develop a set of objectives and measures of success suitable for their own projects and needs and support them in gathering the evidence that demonstrates their achievements. We will then work with them to celebrate and amplify their success and learning.
We also know, though, that when you are working on issues and problems as complex as those on which we have chosen to focus, things do not always go to plan so we are prepared to flex and adapt along the way.
Above all, we know we need to continue to develop and adapt our own culture and ways of working.
We are sometimes asked how we know we are succeeding. It’s
quite a challenge for a funder of such a diverse range of activities
to have a single set of “performance indicators” to track and
measure over time. Rather, our approach is to work with each of
our grant-holders to develop a set of objectives and measures of
success suitable for their own projects and needs and support
them in gathering the evidence that demonstrates their
achievements. We will then work with them to celebrate and
amplify their success and learning.
We also know, though, that when you are working on issues and
problems as complex as those on which we have chosen to focus,
things do not always go to plan so we are prepared to flex and
adapt along the way.
Above all, we know we need to continue to develop and adapt our
own culture and ways of working.