The UK is a world leader in population research, bolstered by its unique collection of longitudinal population studies, which follow groups of people over time. Individually, the studies have made substantial contributions to the advancement of social and health sciences and together, they have the power to uncover the drivers behind major societal challenges and provide a potent tool for basic science application.
The collective power of the UK’s longitudinal studies was never more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies across the country coordinated to rapidly capture the epidemiological events affecting their participants, work which was then combined with a lifetime of data to shed light on how our backgrounds and lifelong health shaped our experience of the pandemic. This was just one example of many demonstrating how important it is to make the most of population-based research in the UK.
The PRUK mission is therefore to further harness the potential of these scientific resources by supporting researchers, policymakers and study management teams to maximise benefits and overcome shared challenges.
The hub is the culmination of previous PRUK activity, which has been funded through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) since 2021. The Hub is a £9 million investment that will play an important role in PRUK providing joined-up thinking across the UK’s longitudinal population studies and commissioning activities that will result in better, easier to use data resources for social, economic and biomedical science. It marks a further commitment to longitudinal population research infrastructure, alongside ESRC's continuing investments in CLOSER and MRC and ESRC’s joint investment in the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration.
The PRUK co-ordination hub will be directed by Professor Nic Timpson, Principal Investigator of the Children of the 90s cohort at the University of Bristol and Professor Alissa Goodman, Director of the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies. Professors Goodman and Timpson bring a wealth of experience in life course research and longitudinal study leadership and management.