Bereavement research has a rich and significant history in the UK, across topics and disciplines. However, there are still gaps in our knowledge and understanding of these topics.

Most recently, the COVID-19 outbreak and infection control measures have provoked new and urgent questions about the nature of bereavement – and how best to support bereaved people – in these extraordinary times.

This discussion paper (download below) summarises relevant findings on perceived research gaps or priorities from three projects in the UK.

The topics and approaches identified in this paper are not exhaustive and it is likely that a more robust prioritisation exercise would be a useful next step for the field. In the meantime, the summaries presented here are intended to provide a starting point to generate discussion.

We invite researchers to register current and planned studies on bereavement in the UK at our publicly available spreadsheet.