Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to include contractual obligations for organisations receiving public funding for biomedical research and development to ensure (a) equitable and (b) affordable access to their innovations for (a) people in low- and middle-income countries and (b) other people.

Contracts for researchers funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have mechanisms to ensure the effective dissemination of research outputs. They also adhere to the NIHR Open Access Policy to ensure academic research is published freely, immediately, and is permanently available online for anyone to read, share, and reuse. The NIHR also uses standard contracts which ensure that intellectual property generated by research benefits the public. Further information on the NIHR Open Access Policy is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/nihr-open-access-publications-funding-guidance

In addition, all research funded through the Department’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) research programmes delivers direct and primary benefit to the ODA-eligible countries on the Development Assistance Committee list. The scope of the Department’s ODA research is set in consultation with stakeholders in low and middle income countries so that it is relevant, and all research findings are published so that they are available for all. Further information on ODA-eligible countries on the Development Assistance Committee list is available at the following link:

https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/oda-eligibility-and-conditions/dac-list-of-oda-recipients.html