NHS R&D North West would like to wish everyone a very MerryChristmas and a fabulous New Year!
We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to you all for your continued support throughout 2022.
We've had a busy year so far, check out what we've been up to and what's to come in 2023!
North West England Nurse, Midwifery and Allied Health Professional Research Capability and Capacity Strategy 2021-24
The work on delivering the Regional NMAHP Research Strategy goes from strength to strength this year. A significant part of the Summer has been spent on a detailed evaluation of the outcomes from Year One of the Strategy and identifying our priorities as a Region for Year Two.
We are planning to host workshops with those involved in delivery work both on an individual and organisational level early next year. The workshops will be focused on identifying priorities for delivery in Year Two and Three.
HEE/NIHR Bridging Scheme
November 2022 saw the fifth cohort of the HEE/NIHR Bridging Scheme commence. 7 awardees over pre and post doc will complete a 6 or 12 month scheme respectively allowing them the opportunity to develop themselves both professionally and personally with protected time buy-out from their substantive clinical role allowing them the time needed to work on a fellowship application.
51 awardees have now passed through this scheme with a significant number of them going on to gain fellowships and develop their clinical roles all of which have been acknowledged as being successful due to the support received from the Bridging Scheme.
The bridging scheme is an annual programme and we expect the next cohort to be open for applications in Autumn 2023. Further information on the Bridging Scheme can be foundhere
HEE/NIHR Pre Masters NMAHP Internship
In April 2022 the HEE/NIHR NMAHP Internship for the North West commenced with a 2-day educational residential workshop in Lancaster. 12 awardees over a range of allied health professions completed the 6-month scheme.
This scheme introduces NMAHPs with an interest in research into the world of clinical academic research and allows them to spend up to 30 days with an academic supervisor working on research projects. It is hoped that following the completion of this internship these awardees go on to become Early Career Researchers on a clinical academic pathway.
Applications are open for the next cohort due to start in April 2023, the closing date isFriday 23rd December – further details can be foundhere
Early Career Researcher Pathway Programme
We received funding from the NIHR CRN NWC and GM to go ahead with another cohort of our Early Career Researcher Pathway Programme which was great news!
This is a 10 month programme with 30 individuals who are interested in kick-starting their research career. We started the programme with an action-packed residential in Wigan in October. We cannot wait to see what happens over the next 12 months! To see what we get up to, check out the hashtag on twitter #ECRPathway22
The programme is now a Level 7, 20 credit module within the University of Liverpool. To read more about the programme please click here
Health and Care Research EXPO NW 2022
This year has seen many firsts for research in the North West. As an outcome from the NW England NMAHP Research Capacity and Capability Strategy 2021-24 research practitioners across the Region joined forces to participate in the EXPO event in March-April.
The event had two key parts – the online digital gallery space which showcased the project work of research practitioners in our Region, featured individual researchers journeys and showed how the North West Region was contributing to the national health and care research agendas.
The second part of the EXPO was a programme of live, interactive presentations and workshops featuring local research champions and national strategy leads. We also hosted several workshops showcasing our partnership with University of Liverpool through the Provocations events.
We have now completed the curation activity from the event, and this can be found by clicking here
Provocation Series
We have been working in partnership with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Liverpool to bring you more sessions from the provocation series, which launched in July 2021.
The 'provocation' approach is partly about taking people outside of their comfort zone to explore research fields that are quite different from their own areas of expertise and to see how this might challenge us to think about our work in new ways.
The next seminar, Illustrating Futures: Graphic Medicine as Treatment for Mental Health in Children and Young People will take place on 22nd February 1pm – 3.30pm.It will be led by Dr David Hering, Senior Lecturer in English from the University of Liverpool and Co-Director at the Centre for New and International Writing.
We then also have another session, The Lived Experiences of People Bereaved by COVID-19 led by Professor Lynn Sudbury-Riley and this will take place on1st March 2023, 12-2.30pm.
If you would like to learn more about the series, please click hereand if you would like more information about the seminar on the 1st March 2023 please contact Jo Simpson
NIHR Incubator Film Series
We have been working in collaboration with the NIHR Nursing and Midwifery Incubator to produce four films to showcase individual nurses and midwives who have successfully received an NIHR research fellowship and are pursuing clinical academic careers. These films will be designed to promote clinical academic careers and engage nurses and midwives in research.
These films are now in the final stages and they will be launching soon so keep an eye out!
Social Care Internship Pilot Scheme
Earlier this year we launched a new Social Care/Social Work Internship Pilot Scheme. The programme will align with essential elements of the NIHR School for Social Care Research current mission and in particular its commitment to building and strengthening adult social care research capacity.
The scheme will provide an opportunity for social care practitioners to begin to understand and access applied health and social care researcher development, in effect enabling participants to ‘dip their toes’ into the social care research world. We kick started the scheme with a residential stay in May at Lancaster House. To read more about the scheme, please click here
Integrated Care Boards and Working Together
This October we joined 120+ senior NHS and local authority leaders from across all 42 integrated care systems at the HSJ Integrated Care Summit in Manchester. The summit provided a platform to discuss the challenges around place-based and system-level working. It was an excellent event and highlighted the opportunities and challenges the introduction of the ICBs in July 2022 has created. It was helpful to us as it provided insight into how we can develop our work programme to support the integrated care approach bringing health and care practitioners together in our ongoing programmes for 2022/23 onwards.
Equity in Doctoral Education through Partnership and Innovation (EDEPI)
We have collaborated with Liverpool John Moores University this year as one of their partners in the Equity in Doctoral Education through Partnership and Innovation (EDEPI).
The project is designed to improve opportunities for Black, Asian and minority ethnic students to undertake postgraduate research and is funded through Research England. LJMU is part of a consortium with Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University collaborating with the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE), Grit Break Through Programmes, as well as regional health partners.
EDEPI will target recruitment, admissions and transition as critical points of systemic inequality in doctoral education for racialised groups. To find out more click here
Heather Pearson - New member to the team!
Heather joined our team as an Administrative Assistant in April this year. Heather has been a much needed help to our small team and we are so grateful for all her help so far! Heather has fit right into the team and got stuck in! Thank you for your help Heather!
