Driven by emerging research priorities and opportunities over the last decade, OUCRU has developed a social, ethical, and implementation research agenda across the programme.

Our team works within multidisciplinary teams across all our OUCRU sites and within a wider network of partners across the globe. We are trained in ethnographic, qualitative, mixed-method research, participatory action research, health economics, and implementation research. We conduct stand-alone studies that feed into larger biomedical research themes and integrated studies that link with and enhance biomedical research.

Our goal is to provide an understanding of the behavioural and social determinants of ill-health related to infectious diseases, to define the ethical dimensions of our research, and to evaluate the likely acceptability and sustainability of interventions and their pathways to impact upon health.

Since 2012, we have worked in collaboration with the Wellcome-funded Global Health Bioethics Network, which has provided the financial and academic support to develop a cadre of bioethicists and social scientists within OUCRU.