Inequality of opportunity, education, employment, housing and access to physical activity across our communities can make people vulnerable to poorer health, wellbeing and economic outcomes. These outcomes can be exacerbated by policies, programmes and environments that create systems which drive further inequalities — often observed in post-industrial northern communities.

To address this challenge, we undertake research, innovation and knowledge exchange that focuses on tackling system-wide inequality. We do this by radically rethinking the way societies design policies, places and programmes, with the aim of making being physically active more equitable for people across our region.

We design, develop, evaluate and help others adopt systems, whole-of-systems, and place-based approaches. We pioneer new methodologies and approaches to community engagement and involvement.

We prioritise and embrace ‘real-world evidence’ and build on our current patient and public involvement in research infrastructure to find new, sustainable ways to meaningfully involve people and communities in our work.

We co-produce our interventions with a focus on those individuals and groups who are currently underserved, seldom heard or otherwise excluded from research (e.g. by virtue of disability, protected characteristics, social, demographic, or economic factors), using our dashboards to track the impact we make on health inequalities across our entire portfolio.