Research service to report on prevention of drug use and policy developments of relevance to the drug situation in Ireland for Ireland’s EMCDDA National Focal Point 2021-23

Tender description

The Health Research Board (HRB) is the lead agency in Ireland supporting and funding health research. We provide funding, maintain health information systems and conduct research linked to national health priorities. Our aim is to improve people's health, build health research capacity and make a significant contribution to Ireland's knowledge economy. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is a decentralised EU agency based in Lisbon. The EMCDDA provides the EU and its Member States with information on the nature, extent, consequences of and responses to illicit drug use. It supplies the evidence base to support policy formation on drugs and addiction in both the European Union and Member States. The HRB is one of the 30 national monitoring centres, or focal points, (the Reitox network) that gather and analyse country data according to common data-collection standards and tools and supply these data to the EMCDDA. The results of this national monitoring process are supplied to the Centre for analysis, from which it produces the annual European drug report and other outputs. Under the HRB’s annual grant agreement with the EMCDDA the national focal point is responsible for collecting, harmonising and analysing national information according to agreed standards and providing it to the EMCDDA. These tasks require the focal point to: • Monitor and analyse national scientific, legal and policy documents • Coordinate national information networks • Disseminate the NFP and EMCDDA outputs nationally Each year the NFP must provide: • A series of workbooks each dealing with a particular aspect of the drug situation and responses to it • Statistical standard tables and structured questionnaires • Data related to the epidemiological indicators • Information relating to European Council decision on the information exchange, risk-assessment and control of new psychoactive substances; early warnings to the EMCDDA