Go-ahead for £6.5m public health institute

Leeds will become a major contributor to improving the nation’s health with the construction of a world-class Institute of Health Science and Public Health Research on the University’s western campus. Proposals were approved at Council in June for the £6.5m institute, which will gather together 240 researchers in psychological, social and cultural aspects of health.

Significant changes in public health policy are expected over the next ten years with funding for health research predicted to grow to £100m per year by 2008. It is forecast the institute will generate research incomes of approximately £750,000 a year within three years.

The institute will comprise four centres in a restructured faculty of medicine and health: primary care; public policy and practice; management in health sciences; and psycho-social aspects of public health.

Dean of the faculty of medicine and health, Professor Ed Hillhouse, said: “It is a very exciting and visionary development. The institute will have real weight in the field and bring a unique combination of methodological expertise and near-patient problem-driven research to bear on the government’s agenda for improved public health in the next decade.”

The institute is the third cornerstone in a strategy for medicine and health that also includes the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Epidemiology and Cancer Research and the Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health and Therapeutics.

The IMMECR is bringing together 300 researchers in cancer, genetics, pathology, immunology and molecular medicine in a new building at St James’ University Hospital.

LIGHT will gather 100 researchers from medicine and biological sciences, combining basic science and clinical research.