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Welcome to the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

The Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing is Durham’s flagship interdisciplinary Institute tasked with delivering the Health@Durham Strategy. Established in 2001, we foster research relating to human health and wellbeing in both developed and developing countries from the individual to global scale.

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Interdisciplinary approaches

Our mission is to encourage and support high calibre interdisciplinary research to understand and address human health challenges.

We do this through our Challenge Academies. Each has been carefully built to address local and global unmet need in health-related issues. Closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, these Academies have the interdisciplinary approach unique to Durham University built in. In this way, each Academy can address major problems in health and wellbeing, but also be responsive to new challenges as they arise.

We help our Challenge Academies grow, fostering networking, identifying and assisting with funding opportunities, expanding their internationalisation and ensuring impact through clinical, industry or policy collaboration. This approach is central to our core ethos where our Academies address the beginning (identifying the correct question), the middle (understanding who the problem affects and how) and the end (how we can use this knowledge to create purpose built solutions that don’t just help some of the people some of the time but all of the people, all of the time).

Health, Environment and Architecture Discourses from the Past, Challenges for the Present, Perspectives for the Future Seminar Series 2023/2023

Everybody’s life and health are affected by environmental factors. Housing conditions, workplace, architecture, design and landscape constitute important individual and interdependent elements in that regard. To this we must add environmental factors such as global warming, extreme weather events and pollution, which have reper­cussions for the ways in which we think about architecture and housing.

This guest lecture series will approach the relationship between health, environment and architecture from various different angles - Please visit the Seminar Series Page for a full event listing.

Health at Durham

We're a collaboration of 44 specialist centres, academies and projects, with over 40 undergraduate courses and postgraduate programmes. Unbound from clinic, we frame health differently. Our vision for health is for people to thrive in the places they live. We embrace physical, mental, social and environmental health, envisioned as a synergy of self, beliefs, culture, family, community and planet.

Our Undergraduate and Postgraduate Programmes

Explore over 40 undergraduate and postgraduate courses. From research methods to neuroscience, biology to technologies and sustainability. 
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Explore Health at Durham

Discover more about what is taking place across our three interrelated frames of health. From individual health to communities and environments.
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The Institute conducts and facilitates interdisciplinary research on health and wellbeing across the University Faculties. We support a community of Fellows, Postgraduate Associates, Research Centres and projects across almost all of the University's departments and schools. In collaboration with our sister Institutes at Durham University, particularly the Biophysical Sciences Institute and the Institute for Medical Humanities, and our external partners such as the AHSN, NHSA and BioNow, we address Health related research in a 360° way, looking at all of the influences on our Health and Wellbeing, and how they interact with each other.

Explore the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

News

  • New Hope for Motor Neuron Disease

    Nevrargenics Ltd is a UK-based neuroscience company (spin out of Durham university chemistry department, CEO Professor Andy Whiting) specialising in the discovery and development of novel medicines for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Motor neuron disease (MND), and other neurological and psychiatric diseases.
    MN
  • Early Career Researcher (ECR) research proposal ‘pitch to peers’ session

    Are you an ECR looking for constructive feedback on a research idea or proposal for funding (e.g., an internship or PhD proposal, a fellowship application, internal or external grant funding) that is related to health and wellbeing (broadly construed)? If so, the Wolfson Research institute for Health and Wellbeing (WRIHW) is running a couple of ‘pitch to peers’ sessions in December.
    An image of a post it ideas board
  • The Critical Care Garden - One Year On

    Our Brain Body and Behaviour Academy, along with Artists and Researchers from Sunderland University and James Cook University Hospital are currently evaluating the impact of a garden designed to speed the recovery of critical care patients.
    Enlighten Garden

Early Career Researcher (ECR) research proposal ‘pitch to peers’ session

Are you an ECR looking for constructive feedback on a research idea or proposal for funding (e.g., an internship or PhD proposal, a fellowship application, internal or external grant funding) that is related to health and wellbeing (broadly construed)? If so, the Wolfson Research institute for Health and Wellbeing (WRIHW) is running a couple of ‘pitch to peers’ sessions in December.
An image of a post it ideas board

The Critical Care Garden - One Year On

Our Brain Body and Behaviour Academy, along with Artists and Researchers from Sunderland University and James Cook University Hospital are currently evaluating the impact of a garden designed to speed the recovery of critical care patients.
Enlighten Garden

Get in Touch

Find out more about the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing.

Wolfson Research Institute

Room 236

Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

C/O Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience

South Road

Durham

DH1 3LE

Tel: + 44 (0) 191 334 0013