Plymouth Institute of Health and Care Research (PIHR) is committed to bringing about real improvements to people’s health at a local, national and global level. Knowledge mobilisation is therefore a core ambition, whether it is producing highly impactful research, influencing national policy, sharing good practice internationally, or supporting our local stakeholders and healthcare workers.
Our approach to stakeholder engagement reflects the philosophy and ethos of ever evolving approaches to knowledge mobilisation which seek to link academic research, the knowledge of ‘experts by experience’ (the users of research or services) and the range of local organisations (e.g. commissioners, trusts, local authorities, charities, community groups) that are delivering services in order to co-produce research that is user-informed and relevant.
There are a range of stakeholders that are important to this civic mission. Our ‘researcher in residence’ model aims to bridge connections between these groups and involves the embedding of researchers in our partner organisations in order to co-produce research, build long-term research capacity and improve services.
We have developed this approach in local evaluations of integrated care and social prescribing (Asthana, Byng, Elston, Gradinger, Hazeldine, Husk) and are developing it further in relation to food systems transformation research (Pettinger).
We have pioneered the development of clinical academic careers in our local NHS Trusts through the Clinical School initiative, which seeks to support clinicians to engage in research to drive forward innovation and effective healthcare (Kent, Hickson, Latour, Shawe, Pearce).
In 2020, clinical members of our Hepatology Research Group were all involved in delivering care to in-patients with COVID and led recruitment to a number of interventional and cohort studies.
Partnership working also lies at the core of our Centre for Health Technology’s approach, which involves linking industry partners to both the University of Plymouth’s wide range of health technology expertise and to relevant health and care organisations and end-users (clinicians, patients and public) in the South West region and beyond.
