New centre for artificial intelligence awarded £1.8 million for health and care research
27 January 2025
The Centre for Social Care and Artificial intelligence LEarning (SCALE) will receive £1.8 million of catalytic funding from Health and Care Research Wales.
Health and Care Research Wales has announced Research Development Infrastructure funding for 17 research centres across Wales. These centres include five new organisations, one of which is SCALE.
SCALE has been awarded catalytic funding, which aims to boost capacity and capability in areas of health and care need and emerging Welsh research strength.
Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, said: “Research has a critical role to play in helping us to achieve our aim of A Healthier Wales. This is an important investment in new and exciting areas of research, including women’s health; preventing suicide and self-harm and AI – I hope it provides real evidence over the next five years, which will help shape services and care for people across Wales.”
Social care in Wales is facing enormous challenges due to increasing demands and cuts in funding. Recent advances in artificial intelligence offer the potential to build smarter, more agile and more effective social care services, allowing limited resources to be targeted where they will have the most impact. The SCALE centre will bring together researchers from Computer Science, the Centre for Adult Social Care (CARE) and the Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) to develop new approaches and techniques that will benefit service users, practitioners and policymakers.
Michael Bowdery, Joint Interim Director at Health and Care Research Wales and Head of Programmes, Research and Development Division at Welsh Government, said: “This announcement represents a significant investment in our funded infrastructure in Wales over the next five years, and reflects our ambition to advance research capability aligned with unmet health and social need in key policy areas.
“Our approach to providing this funding is based on two criteria – firstly, where there is a clear and compelling research and evidence need in the area for Welsh Government, the NHS and social care system in Wales; and secondly, where there is demonstrably strong or emerging research capacity and capability in the area.
“These centres embody the principle of research having the power to make a difference to people’s health and wellbeing, and we are pleased to be able to support their activity in this field.”