NIHR Women's Health Curated Portfolio Dataset

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) have a long-standing commitment to transparency, to ensure information about health and social care research is made publicly available in a way that benefits patients, researchers and policymakers. To improve the openness of the data landscape in the area of women’s health research, the NIHR and DHSC have collaborated to develop a Women’s Health Curated Portfolio (WHCP) - dataset which demonstrates the breadth of investment into NIHR research that supports the health of women. The WHCP contains research awards directly funded by NIHRs. This includes domestic programme and career development awards. It captures awards ending after 31/03/2019. The data was extracted in May 2025, and will be updated on an annual basis. How is the Women’s Health Curated Portfolio structured?The portfolio is split into two overarching categories:Research Unique to the Health of Women: Awards focusing on conditions that are specific to the health of women. This refers to conditions that, by nature of their physiology, can only impact women such as endometriosis. Topics and subtopics included are:CancerScreening, Detection and DiagnosisTreatment and CarePreventionMaternal HealthNeonatal and Infant Health and CarePerinatal Mental HealthPostnatal SupportPregnancy and ChildbirthPregnancy LossMenopauseUro/Gynaecological Health*Gynaecological ConditionsMenstrual HealthUrogynaecological HealthOther*Research Relevant to the Health of Women: Awards focusing on conditions that are not specific to the health of women, but where women are disproportionately affected and/or experience the condition differently to men. This may encompass awards with a solely female cohort. Additional Healthy Ageing, Lifestyles and CommunitiesCancer*Screening, Detection and DiagnosisTreatment and CarePreventionMental Health and NeurodiversitySexual and Reproductive HealthUro/Gynaecological Health*Urogynaecological HealthViolence and AbuseOther*Disclaimers:While in this dataset we refer to women, we recognise that some transgender men, non-binary people and people with variations in sex characteristics (VSC) or who are intersex may also experience some of the same issues covered. This portfolio excludes awards specifically focused on a transgender, non-binary and/or VSC participant cohort. We recognise that people who are trans, non-binary or have VSC will have specific needs and experiences, and work is ongoing to address these. Topics with an asterisk (*): these topics may appear in both categories ‘Research Unique to the Health of Women’ and ‘Research Relevant to the Health of Women’. For example, research related to urogynaecological health can be either unique to the health of women (e.g. vaginal wall prolapse, a condition that only affects women) or relevant to the health of women (e.g. urinary tract infections, which can affect both men and women).Research focused on Maternal health will include research about Neonatal and Infant Health and Care, as the mothers are affected as well as the infant.Research focused on Breast Cancer has been categorised as ‘Unique to the health of Women’. This is because although the condition can affect men, it overwhelmingly affects women. Awards with a solely male cohort have been excluded from this curated portfolio.Awards that are coded to the topic ‘Violence and abuse’ may focus specifically on men as perpetrators. These have been included because the outcomes of the research are relevant to the health of women and therefore play a significant role in the Government’s approach to tackling violence against women and girls.Regardless of the Topic, every award in this portfolio is relevant to healthy ageing because a lifecourse approach has been taken when designing the portfolio. Awards that are specifically coded to ‘Additional Healthy Ageing, Lifestyles and Communities’ have been done so because this is the main focus of the research. The ‘Additional Healthy Ageing, Lifestyles and Communities’ topic includes research focused on bone health, cardiovascular health, autoimmune conditions, healthy weight, marginalised groups, and health promotion.The awards coded to the ‘Other’ topic are unique or relevant to the health of women but do not primarily fit in any of the other topic areas.Although the focus of an award may be cross-cutting (i.e. relevant to more than one topic), the NIHR Women’s Health Curated Portfolio does not code them as such. Instead, in instances where more than one Topic or Subtopic is relevant, the award is coded to the primary topic of interest. This dataset contains ‘child’ projects. ‘Child’ projects are those conducted as part of an overarching ‘parent’ award (e.g., an evaluation conducted by an NIHR-funded Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) National Evaluation Team). To avoid double-counting, funding is sometimes recorded against the overarching parent award, rather than the child project. In these instances, the child project will display a funding value of £0. For more information about this curated portfolio, please see the attached PDF document. Updated in May 2025