Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications they received for funding to establish Health Protection Research Units based in (1) the North East, (2) Yorkshire, and (3) the North West.

In September 2023, the Department funded National Institute for Health and Care Research launched a two-stage open competition to fund 13 new Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs). Each HPRU is a collaborative research partnership between the UK Health Security Agency and a university or group of universities. Overall, the HPRUs have been awarded £77 million of funding over five years for research to protect the public from health threats.

The following table sets out the applications received by region, and where the university is either the lead applicant or a collaborating partner on the HPRU application: