The research funded by the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge has huge potential to transform the lives of people with type 1 diabetes.

To keep us on track and make sure we’re maximising our research investment, we’ve developed a bold and ambitious approach to evaluating the progress and impact of the Grand Challenge. We’re planning ahead, working in partnership, and learning and adapting. From the very start, we’ve mapped out what we want to achieve and the evidence to collect along the way that will demonstrate progress and impact.

With the Steve Morgan Foundation, Diabetes UK and Breakthrough T1D working closely together, we’ve drawn on knowledge from experts in research funding, evaluation, communications, partnerships and involvement to develop an impact framework. This is being used to track how the Grand Challenge is bringing us closer to the goal of new treatments and a cure for type 1 diabetes.

The Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge Impact Evaluation Framework

The research funded through the Grand Challenge is tackling the three challenge areas. Over time, this will lead to new discoveries that are published in journals, shared at conferences, and further research to fast-track new treatments to the clinic. Underpinning everything is collaboration and community. By building and strengthening connections between the global type 1 community we can be confident that research will be innovative, relevant, and able to move forward quickly.

Diabetes UK’s Impact Lead Dr Jocelyn LeBlanc said:

“The scale and pace of the Grand Challenge means that potential for impact is huge. This framework will help us incorporate insights and learnings along the way, pinpoint the most important information to collect so that we can show progress over time, and share stories of impact with our supporters and the community. We are sharing our approach to assessing impact with other charities and funding bodies and learning from each other’s experiences.”