Saying farewell to Fuse and celebrating its remarkable women on International Women's Day

Laura Ritson, Programme Manager, NIHR Three Research Schools, Prevention Research Programme, Newcastle University

We are marking International Women's Day by saying thank you and a farewell to Laura Ritson, who helped to establish Fuse in 2008 and has been integral to the Centre's success, while at the same time welcoming new Fuse Manager Agata Robertson.

In this post Laura talks about her journey with Fuse.

Celebrating Fuse's 10th birthday

After an incredible 16-year journey, the realisation that my chapter with Fuse has come to a close feels surreal. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have collaborated with an exceptional group of colleagues. Their contributions not only fuelled the growth of Fuse but also played a vital role in my personal development, fostering a continuous journey of learning and growth throughout this period.

Casting my mind back to 2008, I had the privilege of supporting Professor Martin White in spearheading an application to the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) for a Centre for Translational Research in Public Health. This ambitious venture united our five esteemed North East Universities in a unique collaboration dedicated to advancing world-class public health research. Our mission was clear: to enhance health and well-being and combat inequalities. Professors David Hunter, Charlotte Clarke, Janet Shucksmith, and Ann Crosland, among others, joined forces with us in this endeavour. The success of the application was made possible through the invaluable support of policy and practice leaders in Public Health, including Professors Peter Kelly and Eugene Milne. Their ongoing commitment to flying the Fuse flag is truly commendable. The Fuse funding was allocated for infrastructure to build public health capacity in our region. Securing funding alongside four other national centres forged close working relationships that have endured over the years. In 2009, I was delighted to be appointed as the Administrator for Fuse.

Reflecting on the past, our initial funding contract mandated a two-year review due to concerns about the complexity of our collaborative model, one which we passed with flying colours. Fast forward to today, and it's evident that collaborative efforts are now an integral part of our professional landscape. Embracing collaboration with practice partners and the public has been a significant aspect of our growth during my tenure with Fuse. How times have changed, and how exciting it has been to witness and contribute to this transformative evolution.

There have been so many highlights that it’s difficult to know where to start, and impossible to cover them all!

We underwent a lengthy process to identify our name, debating between Fuse and Rede! The communications agenda has grown considerably since we first established Fuse, and we have produced this award-winning blog and our public partner led podcast, and found many other creative ways to share our research supported by Fuse Communications Manager Mark Welford. The Fuse network has expanded to 2000 members, and we now have a dedicated Public Partner network, thanks to the support of Fuse Public Involvement and Engagement Manager Ella Anderson.

Another jewel in the crown has been AskFuse, a rapid response and evaluation service for our policy and practice partners. Special thanks must go to Professor Janet Shucksmith and Rosemary Rushmer, who were integral to establishing the service, and Dr Peter van der Graaf, Lesley Haley, and Annmarie Ruse, who have supported the development and continued to lead the way with a service that has also inspired and influenced the development of other regional and national infrastructures.

Capacity building has been integral to the Fuse endeavour, and it’s been great to see the development of public health leaders of the future. I’ve witnessed Fuse PhD students progress to senior-level careers in local authorities, prestigious NIHR awards, and professorial appointments.

I have been delighted to be part of the founders and planning of the Fuse International Conference on Knowledge Exchange in Public Health, and I am looking forward to connecting with colleagues at Cornell in June for the 6th International Conference.

Receiving the Director's Award from Ashley at the Fuse Awards 2023

I’ve seen many changes over the years, including in directorship to Professor Ashley Adamson. Working with Ashley over the last 10 years has been truly inspirational. A successful woman leader, she has steered Fuse through two renewals of its membership to the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR) and also successfully directed the national School since 2017, with the support of a fantastic directorate team at Newcastle University who I’ve been fortunate to work alongside. I’ve also been inspired by the work of Professors Eileen Kaner, Carolyn Summerbell, Clare Bambra, Susan Carr, Monique Lhussier, and Amelia Lake. All of them challenged and helped me grow in the Administrator role, which expanded considerably between 2008 and 2017, enabling a strong case for a promotion opportunity to Fuse Manager.

In 2018, we moved towards a Fuse sustainability model, transitioning away from research council funding and towards Fuse partner University contributions, one which took time, effort and challenging conversations. Sustainability funding covers core staff costs and non-staff activities, including successful research events that serve as a key opportunity for disseminating our research, engaging in dialogue about implications for policy and practice, making new and strengthening existing contacts, and building a dialogue around research results and potential future projects. These events are a crucial forum for knowledge exchange. There has also been the development of the Physical Activity network and Embedded Researcher network which attract national level engagement.

In 2020, I was an integral part of a Fuse-led application to the NIHR Public Health Interventions Responsive Studies scheme, in which PHIRST Fusion was established. The Fusion initiative takes an evaluability assessment approach to co-producing evaluation design that addresses the priorities of Local Authority stakeholders. Due to my experience with Fuse, I led the communications agenda for PHIRST at a national level and helped secure funding from the Department of Health and Social Care for a dedicated Communications Manager post, which we now host within PHIRST Fusion.

I’ve been dedicated to working with Fuse for a number of years, drawn by; the people, nature, and variety of the Programme Manager role, the difference public health research is making to the population, and the flexibility I’ve had during my career to bring up my children through a combination of part-time and flexible working and during a national pandemic. I was also enthused by the challenge each day brought my way.

I’ve been grateful to Cheryl Wiscombe for supporting Fuse Administration and, more recently, Ann Payne, who has supported me with Fuse’s membership in SPHR. 

I’m thrilled to have transitioned into the role of Programme Manager for the NIHR Three Schools Prevention Research Programme, hosted by the School for Public Health Research, all while pursuing a part-time MSc in strategic leadership. Considering the latter, I had never thought myself capable of undertaking such a commitment. However, thanks to the support and encouragement of close colleagues, I've grown in confidence to seize this opportunity.

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has shown dedication to Fuse over the years. I wish Fuse the best of luck for the future under the leadership of the new Director, Professor Sheena Ramsay, and Programme Manager Agata Robertson. I am confident that the coming years will bring both joy and challenges, and I eagerly anticipate following your progress, including the expansion of Fuse into Cumbria and the reinvigoration of the Fuse research clusters.

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Visit the Fuse website to meet new Fuse Manager Agata Robertson, as she tells us about herself, her interest in public health, and what attracted her to working with Fuse.

Catching golden opportunities to create public health evidence as they fly by...

Posted by Dr Helen Walters, NIHR Public Health Consultant Advisor

This week it was announced that a UK collaboration led by Fuse had been awarded prestigious funding to lead a Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Team (PHIRST), as part of a new national scheme. 

Dr Helen Walters, NIHR Public Health Consultant Advisor

Here Helen Walters introduces the four newly launched public health research teams, contracted under the PHIRST scheme, to enable local authorities to rapidly evaluate interventions aiming to improve health and tackle health inequalities in their areas.

When I was a Director of Public Health in London I knew that my team were delivering innovative schemes that affected large numbers of people. Our hope was that the schemes would improve health and reduce the health inequalities experienced by some highly deprived populations. But we didn’t really know whether they were achieving this.

Did the Healthy Schools programme working across more than 1,500 schools in the capital improve the health of thousands of children? Did the Healthy Workplace award scheme improve sick leave levels for London’s employers? Would getting the Healthy Streets approach into the heart of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy make any difference to physical activity levels in the city?

We were basing these schemes on the little evidence that was available, but we could not find a way to get them evaluated to build that evidence-base any further. Public health practice in local government is mainly distant from academic public health research. Local government does not have a culture of undertaking research. It moves fast, and does not have routes into research funding. Golden opportunities to learn and evaluate were being lost.

The PHIRST Scheme

The NIHR’s Public Health Research programme (PHR) is experimenting with a new scheme to try and solve this conundrum – the PHIRST scheme. PHIRST stands for Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Teams. The idea is that the PHR contracts with four academic teams who are ready and waiting, fully-funded, to evaluate schemes that are happening in local government across the UK.

The timing could probably not have been worse but somehow, despite pestilence and lockdown, we have managed to appoint four teams, and to match them up with four local authorities that are keen to have their schemes evaluated. Issues include:

• free school breakfast clubs in Hammersmith and Fulham
• citizen-informed design of employment support in Fife - Fuse project in collaboration with Fife Council
• remote provision of drugs and alcohol services in Leeds 
• reducing exposure to adverts for foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) on the transport system in Yorkshire 

The PHIRST teams are led by prominent public health researchers: Ashley Adamson (Newcastle University), Susie Sykes (London South Bank University), Rona Campbell (University of Bristol), and Katherine Brown and Wendy Willis (University of Hertfordshire). They will work closely with each local authority to co-create the evaluation with the heavy lifting being undertaken by the PHIRST teams and fully funded by the NIHR, starting in September.

Timely and accessible research for local authorities

And in a few months the PHR programme will go out to Directors of Public Health and ask for more schemes to evaluate, so we can keep the PHIRST teams busy. If it works the plan is to make this a rolling programme.

Local authorities have huge opportunities to influence health and health inequalities but without an evidence-base they cannot maximise these opportunities. The hope is that this scheme will provide timely and easily accessible evaluations for those who are still hard-pushed Directors of Public Health so that, in the future, there will be an evidence-base.

For further information please visit the NIHR website or email phr@nihr.ac.uk.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health and Social Care.

Helen Walters' blog was originally published on the NIHR website.

Is it possible to have a research career without being a workaholic?

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager, Teesside University

This was one of the burning questions that NIHR trainees put to an esteemed panel of career advisers at their annual meeting in Leeds. Every year the National Institute for Health Research brings together their trainees at a two-day event to network, share experiences, take part in workshops and generally learn more about the largest national clinical research funder in Europe. This year’s theme: Future Training for Future Health.

With all these bright minds in the room and a dedicated session on successful fellowships and grant applications, you would think ‘top tips on surviving an interview’ and ‘what mistakes to avoid in an application’ would be on the top of their list. However, after several inspiring presentations from previous and current award holders who had climbed the academic ladder - including Fuse Director Ashley Adamson a NIHR Research Professor - participants were equally, if not more, concerned about maintaining a healthy life-work balance.


Follow the yellow brick road to academic success

While Brexit questions made a brave entrance (Q: How will Brexit affect future research? A: In the long term, not all all!), they could not knock questions about mental health and wellbeing from the top spot. When Ashley included pictures of her son in a musical-inspired animation of her academic pathway (follow the yellow-brick road!) to explain that she preferred part-time work to spend more time with her family, participants immediately asked “but how do you fit family in with an academic career?”.

New gadget SLI.DO was introduced by the NIHR at the meeting this year: participants could submit questions through a mobile app, which others could vote to be answered by the panel (Bush Tucker Trial for academics). Not having to stand up in front of an audience to say who you are, might have given some participants the confidence to ask uncomfortable questions. The honest and open stories from the presenters about their own struggles and failures in academia (“my new post oscillated between agony and despair”) might also have contributed to this confidence.


Paul McGee emphasises the importance of
 looking after your mental health in academia

Experiences of stress and concerns over mental health in academic careers were acknowledged throughout the conference in various presentations and workshops. This was perhaps most evident in the closing session by Paul McGee (aka The Sumo Guy) who emphasises the importance of looking after your mental health in academia. His four key messages (be kind to yourself; get perspective; hippo time - to wallow - is ok; and keep pushing) resonated with many participants and provoked a strong response on social media.

As public health researchers, we are familiar with these messages. In our studies, we underline the link between physical and mental health, express our deep concern over the lack of mental health services and highlight the importance of resilience training from an early age in schools. However, it appears that we are not very good at applying this evidence to our own life and work.

This was recently confirmed by a systematic review of published work on researchers' well-being featured in the Times Higher Education. The review, commissioned by the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust, found that academics face higher mental health risk than many other professions. Lack of job security, limited support from management and weight of work-related demands on time were listed as factors affecting the mental health of those who work in higher education.

Given this evidence, is it possible to have an academic career and stay healthy? Despite the questions raised at the annual event, the NIHR trainees were keen to acknowledge positive mental health messages: you can have a life and family outside academia (no need to be workaholic, although being a data geek is acceptable*); it’s ok to be different and carve your own path to develop your intellectual independence; and most of all: the key to success is self-care and not funding.

* An after-dinner presentation by @StatsJen taught us that there is a perfect correlation between eating cheese and death by entanglement in bedsheets. Will midnight cheese feasts be the next public health scare?

52 weeks in public health research, part 52

Posted by Emma Foster, Amelia Lake, Lorraine McSweeney and Mark Welford

So this is it, we have reached the final week of our 52 week public health picture project. But what insights has it provided into the everyday lives of public health researchers? Find out in a blog post coming soon. A big thank you to all those who contributed their images.

Happy New Year!

Posted by Emma Foster: Not a New Year resolution as a) it seems silly to start the day after a big party and b) now is when I have a bit more time to exercise... So starting tomorrow this cross trainer is going to be getting much more use....and not just for drying clothes!

Posted by Amelia Lake: Less of a resolution more of an ambition! No more trainers on the bike - it's time to look like a pro... and possibly get a few knocks and bruises in the process!

Posted by Lorraine McSweeney: I recently attended a graduation ceremony at Newcastle University to receive my doctorate award. For the first time in the congregation history the PhD titles were announced during the ceremony; mine being 'Prevention of obesity: exploring strategies for intervention in preschool'. The ceremony was attended by my supervisor and Fuse Director Ashley Adamson. Also in attendance that day was television journalist and newsreader Angela Rippon who received an honorary degree for her charity work in dementia.

Posted by Mark Welford: Fundraisers braving the North Sea to earn money for their favourite charity in the Annual Boxing Day dip. A bit of physical activity after the Christmas day indulgence and the beginning of a New Year's resolution?

52 weeks in public health research, part 49

Posted by Catt Turney Amelia Lake and Mark Welford

 

 Posted by Catt Turney: One of the photos taken by my colleague Britt Hallingberg at the DECIPHer symposium, where staff and students from the three partner universities (Cardiff, Bristol and Swansea) get together to discuss how our research is going and celebrate key achievements. As there are so many of us now we're only able to sympose once a year, and organising an ice-breaker at the beginning of the day is no mean feat. Luckily we had Dr. Jeremy Segrott (on the left, waving his arms in the air) on hand to conduct the task with aplomb. The ice-breaker involved a highly sophisticated and technically advanced approach to finding out our views on various subjects, by situating ourselves appropriately along a piece of string. This particular photo illustrates our views on mornings, about which we appear to have mixed feelings.

 

 

Posted by Amelia Lake: At this week's Fuse Members' Day - which was more popular? Fruit or crisps? (Disclaimer there were more bowls of crisps!!)

 

 

Posted by Mark Welford: Scott Lloyd demonstrating Mosaic, Experian's system for classification of UK households at the Fuse Members' Day. Mosaic is one of a number of commercially available geodemographic segmentation systems, applying the principles of geodemography to consumer household and individual data collated from a number of governmental and commercial sources. It's a bit scary how much it can churn out about you, your neighbours and where you live by simply entering a postcode!

 

 

Posted by Amelia Lake and Mark Welford: Fuse Director Ashley Adamson drawing to a close our Fuse Members' meeting at Durham University. A great meeting with lots of opportunities to catch up with colleagues from the five Fuse institutions and beyond!

 

The meeting was jointly hosted by the Fuse Communications Group and Knowledge Exchange Group and was centred around a blog post written by Scott Lloyd, Health Improvement Commissioning Lead, Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council.  He and his colleagues kindly agreed to give up there time to talk to us about improving partnerships, research and health.

 

This photo also shows off the new Fuse and AskFuse banners!

 

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A reminder from the Fuse blog group:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in most of our lives, we foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on our own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and we’ll post them as soon as we can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Email your posts to m.welford@tees.ac.uk or contact any member of the Fuse blog group.

52 weeks in public health research, part 41

Posted by Amelia Lake and Mark Welford

From Amelia Lake: Is it really 19 years since I started my first degree in human nutrition & dietetics at Glasgow Caledonian University?? It is! Three years were spent living on Byres Road completely in the central hub of a vibrant neighbourhood. I was there last week reflecting on changes good and bad but mainly missing the buzz of the west end of Glasgow.

From Amelia Lake: New Fuse Director Prof Ashley Adamson presents about public health nutrition at the Human Nutrition Research Centre (HNRC) Newcastle University 20 year anniversary event.

From Mark Welford: I saw this illustration by Cartoonist André Carrilho on The Independent newspaper's website under the headline "What's wrong with how the West talks about Ebola in one illustration".  Coincidently a day earlier, Professor Eugene Milne had used the same image in his guest lecture "How Fit For Purpose Is The New English Public Health System?" at Durham University to illustrate his point about the response to Ebola.  

From Mark Welford: Martin White and Jean Adams use twitter to thank everyone in Fuse and the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University for a great send off (they're both heading to the University of Cambridge).  They were particularly impressed by the Fuse branded draft excluder/snake created by Avril Rhodes, our resident knitter extraordinaire!  But what's this got to do with public health?  Well this extract from the letter introducing Fuse snake to the pair might shed some light on the matter:

"We snakes have had a bad reputation since the Garden of Eden which I’m working to improve constantly. For example, I’m not without academic qualifications myself – I am a Graduate of the Royal Academy of Draught Excluders and have the letters GRADE after my name (at every opportunity). GRADE members have undertaken a number of prestigious and tough draught excluding assignments, including, the Castle of Mey, Wormwood Scrubs, the House of Lords, York Minster (brrgh – chilly one that!) and Parkside.

"GRADE members are at the cutting edge of public health. We know cold kills (statistics demonstrate this unequivocally) and that Winter warmth campaigns make a real difference – please, we don’t need a four year evaluation or a meta-analysis to tell us. Consequently, GRADE members are constantly rushing to new assignments.

"I am working tirelessly to get a minimum level of insulation in all British homes and compulsory inclusion of solar panels in all new builds, running a special competition to improve the aesthetics of these panels (don’t they look awful??) in conjunction with the Royal Institute of British Architects. I’m no stranger to slithering my way into the boardrooms of Wimpey, Persimmon, Councils up and down the land, and current party conferences to make my point, and present them with incontrovertible evidence without any reference to “p” values, and whilst speaking with forked tongue. I’ve worked personally with Everest (and all the rest) to improve window draught proofing – even though it could put me out of a job."


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A reminder from the Fuse blog group:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in most of our lives, we foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on our own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and we’ll post them as soon as we can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Email your posts to m.welford@tees.ac.uk or contact any member of the Fuse blog group.

52 weeks in public health research, part 39

Posted by Amelia Lake, Mark Welford and Jean Adams

From Amelia Lake: At the Fuse members' meeting new Director Ashley Adamson thanks Martin White for his leadership of the Centre and wishes him well in his new role with the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) and the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

From Mark Welford: Avril Rhodes reveals the mysteries of being a Knowledge Exchange Broker during her table session at the Public Health Intelligence Northern England (PHINE) network meeting. If you think your event could benefit from a Fuse presence please email avril.rhodes@tees.ac.uk or m.welford@tees.ac.uk

From Amelia Lake: Managing the family actually eating against a busy work schedule means late night cooking! Sweet potato & coconut curry! Looking forward to it already!

From Jean Adams: Research suggests that calorie labelling works to decrease intake in some people, some of the time. When I found out how many calories were in coffee shop cakes, I was slightly horrified and stopped buying them. It's also been suggested that forcing food companies to come clean on food content may encourage reformulation. So I was interested to see these 'petite' treats at Birmingham New Street, with a slightly more appropriate number of calories for a snack. Would love to know effect of these on choice and consumption.

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A reminder from the Fuse blog group:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in most of our lives, we foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on our own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and we’ll post them as soon as we can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Email your posts to m.welford@tees.ac.uk or contact any member of the Fuse blog group.