The research, supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), found that the return on investment in the Oxford BRC was 46% in terms of income and job creation alone.
The paper, ‘A macroeconomic assessment of the impact of medical research expenditure: A case study of NIHR Biomedical Research Centres’, was published in the Plos One journal.
There are a number of methodologies for measuring research impact; one that has been widely used is the Payback Framework, which aims to capture the full life-cycle of biomedical research, from the initial concept to the eventual health, economic and societal benefits.
However, finding the data this framework requires over lengthy time lags is a major difficulty and, conscious that health benefits may not be realised for several years, the Oxford researchers decided to focus on the shorter-term economic returns by using an input-output analysis framework, which is often used to assess the impact of major government spending projects on other aspects of regional economies.
Read more (NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre website)