As a doctoral candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, I research how research funders assess the impact of their investments. My thesis will examine the health and research impacts of an international, multi-funder portfolio of cancer research and how well the impacts of this portfolio align with both the needs of patients and carers and are primed for policymaking.

Within the area of research impact assessment, I am interested in the ways in which research funders approach evaluation and impact assessment of their research portfolios. Some of my special areas of interest include big-data tools that may be available to aid funders and researchers in performing impact assessment, the relationship between impact and research relevance/priority setting, and the use of patient and public involvement within impact assessment of research portfolios. I have also undertaken work to look at ways in which funders could improve the standardization and implementation of research impact assessments to make them more methodologically rigorous and useful.

Within the area of evidence-bases for public health policymaking, I am interested in the ways in which research portfolios and their associated impacts can be examined as evidence-bases for public health policymaking, and if and how research funders may be able to prime their research funding for the development of better evidence bases for policymaking.