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.

Using board games to increase inclusion in research - a trivial pursuit?

Posted by Lesley Haley, AskFuse Research Associate, Teesside University 

Did you play any board games over the holidays? As we scrabble into 2024, have you ever thought about how they could be used as a way to engage people in your research?

I hadn’t, until I went to a recent Creative Methods in Research conference, where Kath Maguire (University of Exeter/NIHR School for Public Health Research) showcased how using board games in research was anything but trivial! Kath demonstrated the concept of using board games in public involvement and engagement can increase participation by reaching people less comfortable with standard formats of engagement or data collection, such as interviews or questionnaires.

Kath brought examples, like a “pairs” game used with public partners to break down barriers of understanding around the jargon used in research. Pairing research jargon, concepts or acronyms (‘randomised control’, ‘double blinded’, ‘SPHR’, ‘NIHR’ for example) with their plain English explanations allowed all participants to probe the underlying assumptions and constructs, and perhaps to reduce the power imbalance between the knowledge giver (usually researchers) with the knowledge receiver (usually public partners). And of course this game can be used to redress that balance by public partners sharing their knowledge with researchers.

However, the most surprising game that Kath has used in increasing involvement was the repurposing of that classic multicultural game, Snakes and Ladders.

While AskFuse (the responsive research and evaluation service run by Fuse) created the pictured Snakes and Ladders game as an interactive way to explore successes (Ladders) and setbacks (Snakes) of getting research knowledge used in practice, Kath has taken the game to a whole new level.

Kath has a wealth of experience in using board games as a creative method of inclusion to reach people less comfortable with more literacy-based research methods. They bring a blank paper board and a variety of stick-on snakes and ladders as a visual prompt to generate discussion and reflection using the metaphor of the game to explore a range of experiences. The aim is not necessarily to play the game, but to use the building of a bespoke “game” to reflect and “illustrate” narratives and experiences.

Participating in Kath’s interactive workshop was, for me, a real game changer. We explored how using snakes and ladders enabled discussion, reflection and inclusion. We could design our own individual game to tell our story, or do it collaboratively. We used the game layout as a metaphor for exploring changes through time or to illustrate a “journey” (for example, exploring access or barriers to health services). It allowed us to describe and reflect on different pathways or starting points. Being a physical representation of our narrative meant that, at times, “gaps” emerged which led to questions around “what was happening here?” and “what are we missing?” The grid could also used to reflect emotional journeys in response to a given (research) question or situation. We explored how focussing on a game allowed for different viewpoints to emerge and for less vocally confident people to engage without having to “carry” a conversation or justify their experience. The game squares could be filled with comments, contributing factors, and ideas. We reflected that the snakes and ladders could be reconfigured for creative re-imagining of time/place/situations - “what would happen if we did this”? And of course the complexities of the research process can be illustrated through the metaphor of Snakes and Ladders.

At the end of the session, there was a tangible product and graphic representation of the research question, the process and the outcomes of the exploration. We reflected that over several sessions, the game would perhaps change and this progress could be captured in photos. The “game” could also then be used creatively to disseminate the research (Coon et al 2022).

We also explored the risk that a gaming method for engagement or data collection, especially in the “Snakes & Ladders” format, could be seen by some people as trivialising the serious business of research, as in the UK it is perceived as a child’s game. However the game is not all it appears. Originally known in “Moksha Patamu”, it was a philosophical game of actions and consequences for adults developed in ancient India (Museum of Gaming 2015). Over time and locality, the game has evolved into other versions, with snakes transformed into “drainpipes” or “chutes (Start the Week 2023). So the game has a tradition of being adapted and re-purposed and perhaps we should not be shy of re-purposing it to make research more accessible?

Since Kath’s workshop, I’ve had a quick look around to see if there are other researchers using gaming. While there is literature on using board games in health education and promotion (Nakao 2019) and public health policy (Spitters 2018) there seems less on the use of board games in public involvement and engagement in health.

Of course, snakes and ladders doesn’t have the monopoly on being the only board game that can be used. So, do you use board games in your research to engage with people and communities? What's been your experience of what works for who? How do you pitch it? What have you found the setbacks and successes of using board games as a creative way of engaging people and communities?

As you scrabble to fit all the board games back into the cupboard after Christmas, maybe it’s time to reflect that participatory board games in research could be for the rest of the year too, not just for Christmas.

With thanks to Kath Maguire for the interactive workshop and to SPHR for funding attendance at the conference.



References:

Coon, J.T., Orr, N., Shaw, L. et al. (2022) Bursting out of our bubble: using creative techniques to communicate within the systematic review process and beyond. Syst Rev 11, 56 https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-022-01935-2

Kath’s work:

Museum of Gaming Newsletter (2015) Issue 2 Snakes and Ladders History. Accessed 2 Jan 2024 Available at: https://www.museumofgaming.org.uk/documents/Newsletter2.pdf https://www.museumofgaming.org.uk/index.cfm

Nakao M (2019) Effects of board games on health education and promotion” board games as a promising tool for health promotion: a review of recent literature BioPsychoSocial Medicine (2019) 13:5 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-019-0146-3

Spitters H.P.E.M , van de Goor L.A.M, Juel Lau C, Sandu P , Eklund Karlsson L , Jansen J, van Oers J.A.M (2018) Learning from games: stakeholders’ experiences involved in local health policy Journal of Public Health | Vol. 40, Supplement 1, pp. i39–i49 | doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdx149 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/40/suppl_1/i39/4925598

Start the Week: Playing Games (2023) BBC Radio 4 Monday 4th December 2023 09.00 Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001t2xq?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile (Accessed 8 Dec 2023)

How to choreograph a dance between policy makers and academic researchers?

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, Associate Professor in Public Health at Northumbria University and AskFuse Research Manager

Dancing is a key move in public health, particularly if you want to make an impact with your research. Knowledge exchange is not just a science or even an art, but very much a dance between researchers and policy makers about the use of research evidence. To complete this dance successfully and get evidence used in decision making, both partners need to follow certain steps. However, learning the steps (science) or performing them perfectly (art) is not sufficient: it requires instinct and feel for where you are in the dance and why you are doing it.

To develop a dance plan for your interactions between policy makers and academic researchers, Fuse hosted a special session (or dance class) at the European Implementation Event in Basel, Switzerland on 8 June. The EIE2023 brought together over 300 implementation scientists, practitioners and funders from across health, social welfare, education and other sectors in Europe. Over two days through fishbowls, science slams, workshops, inspiring keynotes and oral presentations, participants explored how to create a new normal for implementation science in society.

Our session explored dance challenges (e.g. moving too slow, bad timing, outfit malfunctions, and unsynchronised performances) and new routines in response (see: ‘What did we learn?’ below) that we have developed in Fuse over the last 15 years collaboratively with our partners. In the session, we highlighted examples of creative communication (the art of knowledge exchange), research performance both backstage and frontstage (AskFuse), and dancing together (embedded research) to set the scene for a discussion about what makes a successful dance between policy makers, health practitioners and academic researchers. We invited conference participants to share their own reflections of dance routines they have developed to support knowledge exchange and implementation of research evidence in practice and policy making.

What did we learn? 10 dance lessons

Fuse knowledge exchange model

1. Academic researchers need to learn four basic steps for dancing with policy makers (see the Fuse knowledge exchange model):

• Raising awareness, using creative communication.
• Knowledge sharing through joint events.
• Making evidence fit for purpose (localising and tailoring).
• Supporting uptake and implementation (e.g., capacity, co-production, linking activities).

2. A deviant knowledge broker can help to facilitate backstage conversation and protect policy makers and academic researchers from missteps.

3. Go with the music: as the context and process in which evidence is useful changes constantly, it is an important skill for researchers to be able “to go with the music” based on ongoing relationships with policy and practice partners.

4. Emotional engagement between researchers and policy makers is essential to get a better feel for the music. A heart-to-heart or moaning about bad performances helps you to improve dance routines and hide missteps. Don’t forget the power of cookies!

5. Embedded research helps to develop an instinct for the dance, based on a better understanding of each other’s organisational contexts. Embedded research allows you to be part of solutions, developed with the communities affected, not just report on the effect on interventions and their implementations.

6. Public health is political; lobbying and advocacy are a core part of the embedded research roles.

Choreographing your own dance routine

We presented participants with the following questions to help develop their own dance routines: 

In response, conference participants started to develop their own dance metaphors for describing their experiences with collaborative research between academics and policymakers. Someone referred to their routines as a ‘silent disco’, where academics and policymakers were dancing to different pieces of music without knowing what the other where listening too. Other participants emphasised the need to spend time together first before you start picking music, to get a better understanding of each other’s musical tastes (classical meets punk?).

Overall, participants felt inspired to start to think more deeply about their own dance plans. How would you answer the above questions and what would your dance plan look like? 

Full house at the #EIE2023 @fuse_online Special Session! @pvandergraaf75 and Mandy Cheetham choreographing a dance between policymakers and researchers. Creative communication at it’s best! 💃🏽🕺🏼 pic.twitter.com/7ej4Kr29LG

— Leah Bührmann (@LeahBuehrmann) June 8, 2023

My passion for research comes from always asking "why?"

Posted by Pascal Landindome Navelle, FRSPH, Public Health Research Operations Officer and Doctor of Public Health Student at Teesside University.

In today's Fuse blog, Pascal gives his top tips for anyone starting out in research, and shares his own experience which began working with Fuse and Teesside University.

His advice? A passion for the "why?" question and accessing the right mentorship.

As part of the NIHR ‘Your Path In Research’ campaign.

 

After working as a clinician for several years, I felt that my impact on service users was limited. So, upon a thorough reflection, I was inspired to progress into public health research, where I felt I would have a broader impact on society.

Research work is fascinating as it provides a clear pathway to contributing to advancing the knowledge of the disciplinary sector to which I am dedicated. The importance of research should go beyond conceiving theoretical works that would only find a physical location in a library. Research should be "living", circulating, interacting, multidisciplinary, and impacting the environment.

What I enjoy about research is that it allows me to pursue my interests, learn something new, hone my problem-solving skills and challenge myself in several unique ways. Working on a faculty-initiated research project enables me to work closely with a mentor–a faculty member, and other experienced researchers. With a self-initiated public health research project, I can leave the community with a service that represents the distillation of my interests and studies and, possibly, a real contribution to knowledge.

There are many training and support systems that I have found valuable during my career. Researchers usually embark on increasingly diverse careers, where collaboration, networking and interdisciplinarity have become more important. Critical reading, academic writing and critical analysis are valuable training and support required of a researcher. Transferable skills, such as effective communication and problem-solving abilities, have helped me operate more effectively in different work environments.

Starting a research career can be daunting but exciting! The challenge of getting the support needed to achieve my dream came true when I enrolled at Teesside University for a research degree. This began by getting involved with AskFuse (Fuse’s responsive research and evaluation service) and with Associate Professor Dr Peter van der Graaf, working on an enquiry to evaluate Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust’s staff health and wellbeing resources during the pandemic, as part of my PhD research. This then led to working on the South Tees Arts Project (STAR) with Peter, a pilot study to co-produce wellbeing measures with primary school children, their parents, teachers, and artists for a school-based dance intervention. I supported the data collection, analysis and report writing for the STAR project as a Research Assistant and even wrote a song for the engagement activities with children in the research!

I had the opportunity of getting mentorship and some academic resources to enhance my knowledge. I connected and contacted very experienced researchers in the field of public health who supported my interest in growing as a research professional. Through the people I’ve met, I have had the opportunity to work on exciting but substantial research projects that have had a massive impact on the public health community.

My top three tips for somebody starting out in research are:

1. First and foremost, you should be motivated, passionate, and curious about your research topic – do it for science, not tenure! No one ever became a successful scientist with the sole premise of being awarded the Nobel Prize. And remember that plans rarely work out the way you thought they would.
2. Be prepared for a challenging career. Research is ever-changing. Be prepared for the change that research comes with strengthening your problem-solving skills to enhance the fun aspect of research. Problem-solving skills refer to handling difficult situations and overcoming complex challenges. They involve breaking a problem down into its parts, thinking critically about each element, analysing the information you find and using that information to form an effective solution. Having strong problem-solving skills will help make you an asset in your research practice and help you advance your research career.
3. Finally, be proactive, network and connect more with like-minded professionals. Sometimes, the key to getting to places is not what you know but who you know. We can learn a lot from talking to peers and senior colleagues. Attending symposiums, seminars and conferences is a great way to meet people who share common interests with you but have different experiences.

The NIHR has supported my career development through the provision of training, access to leadership development opportunities, networking events, mentoring and guidance on research funding.

The NIHR launched the Your Path In Research campaign this week. Better research leads to better services for the public. That’s why the NIHR want to encourage organisations and social care and public health professionals to play an active role in research, as a way to deliver even better services.

The Your Path in Research campaign highlights how people can make research part of their careers. Some amazing researchers have shared their experiences, how they started in research and what advice they can give to researchers that are considering adding research to their careers.

Take your first step in research today.

Four practical steps to increase knowledge exchange between researchers and policymakers

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow, Teesside University

Are you keen to have impact with your research but get lost in all the knowledge exchange frameworks and models that are out there? In this blog, Peter calls upon 10 years’ experience working in translational public health for Fuse to identify four practical steps to develop collaborative research and achieve meaningful change in policy and practice.

We know all about the challenges of using research to inform policy and practice, especially in public health where the evidence base for interventions or programmes is patchy or contested. In response to these challenges, countless models and frameworks have been developed that try to define the knowledge exchange process (how research evidence can be used, in combination with other types of knowledge, to change policy and practice). Practitioners and researchers venturing into the field of knowledge exchange can be bewildered by the options available which don’t go beyond concepts and fail to describe in practical terms what research translation looks like in reality.

Here I want to share practical guidance from our research on ‘how to do’ knowledge exchange by reflecting on a model that has been developed in Fuse over the last ten years. Our approach to achieving practice and policy change has been to engage with practitioners, policymakers and the public through communications and knowledge brokerage, to co-create relevant research, influence policy and practice debates and promote evidence uptake. Below I have broken this down into four practical steps:

• Step 1. Awareness raising: Making evidence users, funders and support organisations aware of our existence, our research and engagement opportunities, including engaging our partners early in setting the agenda for future research.
• Step 2. Sharing knowledge: Creating opportunities for research users and producers to come together to explore opportunities for mutual learning and knowledge exchange through collaborative events, our responsive research service (AskFuse), and patient and public involvement.
• Step 3. Making evidence fit for purpose: Localising and tailoring evidence to context by offering a knowledge brokering service, embedded research, and increasing awareness of the different pressures faced by people in health policy, practice and academia.
• Step 4. Supporting uptake and implementation of evidence: Developing long-term relationships with policy and practice partners to co-create evidence, build capacity for practice change, and change practice and policy.

It is important to link a range of knowledge exchange activities that engage policymakers and practitioners at different levels, intensities and points in their decision-making and development processes.

For example, before meeting with policy and practice partners, we develop tailored research briefs that summarise study findings in an accessible and visual way, and that emphasise recommendations and implications for policy and practice. Involving Fuse researchers in developing these briefs improves their knowledge exchange skills, while providing them with ‘calling cards’ to initiate relationships with policymakers for further collaborative work. These conversations are often followed by requests to AskFuse on how knowledge users can apply the research evidence in a specific context, invitations to engage in collaborative research, or to support capacity building and implementation.

Knowledge exchange between academia and public health practitioners and policymakers can be complicated and at times bewildering. Breaking the process down into practical steps illustrates that knowledge exchange is empirical and relational.

Covid-19 and the legacy of Edward Jenner: a tale of two pathogens

Posted by Lesley Haley, AskFuse Research Associate, Teesside University 

2020 is going to be a momentous year in world history as the year that the Covid-19 pandemic changed all our lives.

Edward Jenner, English physician who discovered the smallpox vaccine

Coincidentally, this year also marks the 40th anniversary of a significant historic milestone for another deadly disease, but in this case, one which maimed, killed and shaped global history for the past three thousand years (Flight 2011). That disease was smallpox.

On the surface, there is nothing in common between a dead disease and a newly emerging one. But there are some aspects of the history of smallpox that resonate with the unfolding story of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Smallpox was still a killer when I was vaccinated against it in 1967 as part of a routine public health intervention, although it was no longer endemic in the UK. For my mother’s generation, the reality of smallpox was very stark. She experienced the panic of an outbreak in her home town of Glasgow during the war when she was only 10, and again when she was 16, when smallpox killed front-line staff treating infected patients at the local hospital.

Although in 1967 outbreaks in the UK of smallpox were getting rarer, the worldwide picture was very different. Smallpox was still endemic in many countries, maiming and killing an estimated 10-15 million people a year (Baxby 1999). This was despite the fact that Edward Jenner had first introduced a prototype inoculation against smallpox in 1798, had translated his theories and ideas into practice, and had a huge impact during his lifetime (the academic dream!).

One aspect of Jenner’s life and work bears closer scrutiny in light of the current Covid-19 pandemic, and particularly on the emerging debate surrounding the development of a new vaccine. During his lifetime, Jenner made his research, his ideas and his smallpox inoculations freely available to everyone, irrespective of who they were (Baxby 1999). Jenner and his contemporaries appreciated the commercial opportunities of his discovery, but he continued to give free inoculations to everyone who approached him at his surgery, despite the detrimental financial impact this had on his personal and professional life (Britannica 2020). He understood exactly what the implications of his discovery meant for the common good.

So if Jenner’s work was freely available, (and although certainly not perfect), why was smallpox still endemic in some countries in the world in 1967? Millward (2019) proposed that one of the main issues had been the lack of global “joined up thinking” in the approach towards smallpox eradication. It took until 1967 for countries where smallpox was not endemic to realise that they would always be at risk of continual and increasing numbers of smallpox outbreaks, if the disease was still endemic in other parts of the world. Wherever in the world there was smallpox outbreaks, it caused mass panic, strained public health systems to the limit, maimed and killed, and even had economic impacts on national and international trade and travel (Millward 2019). It therefore became in every countries' interest to support a systematic, unified and global approach to smallpox eradication. Under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global strategy of surveillance, containment and vaccination free at the point of delivery and irrespective of ability to pay, worked. In 1980, the WHO declared the world free from smallpox (Baxby 1999) and it became the “first disease to be controlled by immunisation, the first to be eradicated” (Baxby 1999).

So what will historians say about the story of Covid-19? What will be the role of the global community in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic? Will Jenner’s altruistic example of free and accessible vaccinations be consigned to the history books in the 2020 global race to develop a lifesaving Covid-19 vaccine?

On the global front, 4 May 2020 saw world leaders, the UN, research institutions and philanthropic organisations pledge resources to find a vaccine for Covid-19 (albeit with the ominous absence of two major world powers) (BBC 2020). And the race for a vaccine has sparked debates on who, where, and how people would access a Covid-19 vaccine, with speculation for example, that pharmaceutical companies may have to change their business practices (Chu 2020). In the history of smallpox in the UK, vaccine stockpiles were held by private businesses, highlighting “that public health resources were not always in public hands” (Millward 2019, p. 64).

Global businesses have also contributed to an “Open Covid Pledge, “to make intellectual property available free of charge for use in ending Covid-19 pandemic and minimising the impact of the disease” (Open Covid Pledge 2020).

When global powers pulled together for the common good, it took just 13 years to rid the world of a disease that had killed millions across the continents of Africa, America, Australia, Asia and Europe in its 3000 year reign of terror. Prior to that, without global unity and treatment free at the point of delivery, it took 169 years. I wonder what Edward Jenner would have thought?

So as our Covid-19 story unfolds in 2020 and beyond, I wonder how future generations will judge the actions and decisions of our current global leaders and businesses?

References:

1. Flight, C (2011) Smallpox : Eradicating the scourge. BBC History. Last updated 17 Feb 2011. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/smallpox_01.shtml Accessed: 05 May 2020.
2. Baxby, D (1999) The End of Smallpox. History Today Vol 49 Issue 3. Available: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/end-smallpox
3. Britannica (2020) Edward Jenner. Available: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Jenner Accessed: 6 May 2020. 
4. Millward G (2019) “Smallpox” Vaccinating Britain: Mass vaccination and the public since the Second World War, Chapter 2. [Internet]. Manchester (UK): Manchester University Press; 2019. Chapter 2. Available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545998/#!po=98.8688 Accessed: 5 May 2020. 
5. BBC News (2020) Coronavirus: World Leaders pledge billions for vaccine fight. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52525387 Accessed: 5 May 2020. 
6. Chu, B(2020) “To find a vaccine for coronavirus, pharmaceutical companies will have to Adamson the race for profit”. The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-vaccine-uk-pharmaceutical-companies-patent-monopoly-a9467381.html Accessed: 16 April 2020. 
7. The Open Covid Pledge (2020) Available: https://opencovidpledge.org. Accessed: 5 May 2020. 

Acknowledgements:

• Mrs Patricia Hoyland (pers comm)
• BBC Today programme. Thought for the day. David Wilkinson 4 May 2020.

Image: 

1. “Edwar Jenner” by Pan American Health Organization PAHO via Flickr.com, copyright © 2010: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pahowho/9525240640. Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
2. The logo of Open COVID Pledge project, 27 August 2020. Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Covid_Pledge_Logo.jpg).

Scaling the mini Matterhorn - risk and adventure with a disability

Posted by Llinos Jehu, Research Associate with AskFuse, Teesside University

Llinos introducing the blog and speaking about her experience of epilepsy

Happy ‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities’! That day set aside by the United Nations to ‘promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society’.

There’s a lot to be happy about. When I was diagnosed with epilepsy in the 1970’s, the world was a very different place. I got used to being treated as a fire and safety hazard (so not allowed into some buildings or events), a risk (so refused insurance), and a liability (excluded from school trips ‘just in case’). Given all the gloom and doom, it’s amazing that I turned out to be such a boringly average sort of person, never knowingly causing anything to spontaneously combust.

Roseberry Topping has been compared to the Matterhorn in the Swiss-Italian Alps

And generally I am happy living as someone with epilepsy, identifying as a disabled person. But then I attend something like the launch of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) in North East & North Cumbria, and get told that I’m going to die 10 years before everyone else. OK, they didn’t actually say that, they didn’t necessarily mean me. But people living with a disability or long term condition are at risk of premature mortality, and that risk isn’t always linked with their condition. For me, good epilepsy management is dependent on taking medication like clockwork. Seizures don’t stop me from taking my medication, but having to remember to order a repeat prescription just might: not more than 10 working days before I run out, but not less than 8 working days as it takes time to process. Good epilepsy management requires a good standard of physical and mental health: managing the weight-gain that the medication can cause, managing stress and anxiety, getting a good night’s sleep. Most people want to achieve some of the things on that list. Epilepsy doesn’t stop me from travelling with my job or going out to see friends; that’s caused by poor public transport. Unless I actually drop down with a seizure (and there’s no reason that I should), epilepsy won’t stop me from doing a 16 mile hike across the Moors. Barriers are more likely to be caused by people asking me, ‘Are you sure you should? Is it safe? Is it wise?’.

Speaking to Steph Kilinc about her research on the experiences of people living with adult-onset epilepsy

So what would make me happy, and possibly live a bit longer? Good, accessible, affordable public transport for starters. And a text from my pharmacist to say that my meds are ready to collect – after all, they know I’m a responsible person who takes them as instructed. They also know I’m not the sort of person who will stock-pile meds to sell on the internet or feed to my goldfish! The text wouldn’t just make sure I had the meds to take, it would make an enormous contribution to reducing levels of stress and anxiety. It would make me feel that I was viewed as an adult with a range of competing demands on my attention, rather than an old child with nothing else to think about.

Phil and Llinos on how technology helps them to navigate both walks and public transport

What already makes me happy is that I’ve had a life filled with friends who’ve supported and encouraged me. They’ve helped to keep the stress and anxiety levels down, to get the good night’s sleep, to manage the risks and have the adventures. There’s still lots to be unhappy about. Sometimes I’m really, really angry. Hate crime targetting disabled people, increasing levels of inequality: sometimes there can seem little to celebrate. But for this year’s event I’ve walked up Roseberry Topping on a glorious day, accompanied by two great friends: Phil Jeffries who’s a very experienced walker and happens to be partially sighted, and Steph Kilinc, a member of Teesside University’s Behaviour, Health and Resilience Research Group who happens to be a somewhat less experienced walker. We’ve compared Steph’s research findings with our own experiences of living with a disability. Phil’s shown how technology can help someone with a visual impairment to read maps (actually how to interpret maps, he was good at orienteering before his sight loss and there’s only so much technology can achieve). Together we’ve managed to navigate the public transport system and arrived at the same place and at the same time. I’m not stressed, I’m not anxious, I’ll take my meds and have a good night’s sleep. I’ll leave being angry until tomorrow, when I might follow up on those ARC presentations and find out what’s to be done to address that premature mortality risk.

References:

• Stephanie Kılınç a,. The experience of living with adult-onset epilepsy, Kilinc S, van Wersch A, Campbell C, Guy A, Epilepsy & Behvious 73 (2017) 189-196

• Thomas R & Barnes M, 2010, Life expectancy for people with disabilities NEUROREHABILITATION Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Pages: 201-209

• Epilepsy Action: https://www.epilepsy.org.uk

• Epilepsy Research UK: https://www.epilepsyresearch.org.uk/

• NHS: https://www.nhs.uk/news/neurology/people-with-epilepsy-have-higher-risk-of-early-death/

Bridging the research industry 'Valley of Death'

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager / Fuse Knowledge Exchange Broker, Teesside University

I was recently invited to attend a meeting in the British Library of the Bloomsbury SET. Not a group of subversive English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists but an Advisory Council for an innovative collaboration between four partner Colleges of the University of London. Namely, the Royal Veterinary College; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; School of Oriental and African Studies; and the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

Death Valley, Eastern California

The partnership is funded by Research England and aims to bridge the ‘Valley of Death’: supporting research projects that get stuck between university and the market place. It does this by creating a knowledge exchange platform between the four Colleges that accelerates the delivery of innovative scientific and technical solutions in the field of infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance.

Pronouncing pathogen emergence, zoonotic disease and antimicrobial whatsit was hard enough, let alone my hope of making a meaningful contribution. I thought I would feel completely out of place as a public health researcher and the only social scientist in the room, but to my surprise I quickly discovered that the collaboration faces very similar challenges to Fuse.

For example, the project is trying to pool their commercialisation expertise across the Colleges and create a ‘single open door’ for government agencies, big pharmaceutical companies, small and medium sized enterprises, and overseas partners particularly in Africa. So, similar to our AskFuse service but with industry. In spite of their best efforts to engage researchers from the different Colleges, the project leads found that not all academics are keen to engage in partnership working outside their immediate area of expertise and that interdisciplinary partnerships, particularly with social sciences and humanities colleagues, proved challenging, as they speak a different language and have different cultures for sourcing funding.

It also proved challenging to develop trusting relationships with industry partners: academics don’t know how to find these partners and engage them in their projects, while industry partners allege that academics are ignorant of innovate technologies that have been developed in-house. This is akin to public health researchers not being aware of different types of knowledge that are being used in local government. It takes time to develop these relationships and exchange knowledge within them, for which the three-year grant funding is not long enough to show full results.

While the partnership is keen to engage with social scientists about the social aspects of the commercialisation process (e.g. work with local non-governmental organisations on engaging communities and identifying cultural and societal perceptions around vaccine use and human health), Research England is more interested in the commercialisation of ‘hard’ intellectual property through licensing or spin-out. Hence, the key performance indicators are all skewed towards these outputs. In other words, the incentive structure set by the funder is not encouraging the very thing that the partnership is trying to achieve. This sounds very similar to the lack of incentives and career opportunities within universities for engaging in knowledge exchange in public health.

Group photo (me, furthest right)

During the meeting, the need for creating an infrastructure within the Bloomsbury SET that can facilitate conversations between academics across the Colleges and broker relationships with industry partners was acknowledged by the Advisory Council members. Dedicated funding to develop collaborative proposals between industry partners and academic researchers that address this need was suggested as a useful knowledge transfer mechanism. Similar to the Public Health Practice Evaluation Scheme (PHPES) operated within the NIHR School for Public Health Research.

In summary, even if you don’t have any expertise in a particular scientific field (and can’t even pronounce their topics), chances are that you have more in common and face similar struggles when moving research findings outside academic institutions, whether that involves industry or policy and practice partners. The Colleges study transmittable diseases from animals to humans but to have impact with their research equal attention is needed to the transmission of knowledge from one human sector/ academic discipline to another.

Actions bring risks

Posted by Llinos Mary Jehu, Research Associate with AskFuse, and Pat Watson, Research Fellow, Teesside University

We all know that. At a time when many of us are returning from holiday (or conference), we can reflect on the risks we took, like driving to the airport or eating sea-food.

So it’s no surprise that participatory action research brings risks. Co-researchers may be exposed to the risks that academics frequently anticipate, such as risks arising from lone-working or the emotional impact of data collection and reflection. There are also risks associated with research being carried out by people who have not been trained to the level of an academic, such as confidentiality, informed consent or interviewing techniques.

I’ve been involved in participatory action research at two universities, as well as within the NHS and local government. I’ve been through university ethics and NHS ethics, jumping through hoops as we’ve recruited and trained co-researchers, often re-submitting so we can finally start collecting and analysing data. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time getting to grips with systems for paying co-researchers expenses and honoraria. It’s amazing how complicated getting agreement to give out some supermarket vouchers can be, as both the ethical risks and financial risks are apparently enormous.

For all these projects, risk was removed, reduced or managed through our training and support systems. The training sessions allowed potential co-researchers to build their understanding of what the research involved, giving them an opportunity to opt-out should they choose. The sessions also built open, trusting relationships which, very occasionally, allowed us to identify and counsel people away from the project and signpost them to other opportunities. These relationships were vital during data collection periods. We may have drunk gallons of coffee and eaten far too much cake, but frequent, informal meetings with co-researchers ensured we kept a handle on what was happening in terms of ethics, finance and lone-working.

Consequently, I was a bit thrown when AskFuse - the responsive research and evaluation service run by Fuse - received a query from Pat Watson at Teesside University. Pat’s been commissioned by Sunderland City Council to carry out a piece of participatory action research involving pregnant mums in the design, development and implementation of a project looking at how expectant mums make decisions on how to feed their babies. The university Ethics committee had asked about insurance for co-researchers, and we had to admit that no one in the AskFuse team had any examples of formal arrangements. I also had a slight concern that, given the risk-averse nature of many large organisations, such a requirement might pose an insurmountable barrier for the research proposal. Undeterred, Pat went on the hunt, with a meandering email trail that eventually reached the University’s Deputy Director of Finance and the Liability Underwriter for the University’s insurers, UMAL. To my absolute surprise and delight, they confirmed ‘that the Teesside University Employer Liability/Public Liability/Public Indemnity covers apply to all University authorised research activity’. If Ethics approve participatory action research, then the co-researchers are insured.

It’s a huge relief that we now have a tick to put in the required box, and we have an example to cite should another researcher be asked the same question. I am really impressed with the approach of the insurance company: as their website states, they ‘never shy away from difficult risks’. However, managing risk in participatory action research requires far more than ticking boxes, regardless of how important these boxes may be. An equally important tool for identifying and managing risk is the strong relationships that successful co-research depends on. These relationships require time and investment, going to where people are and being prepared to share their space. They require trust and respect; possibly not asking people to show you a receipt before you pay their bus fare and not assuming that they’ll use their supermarket voucher to buy cider.

Research tools, data collection and analysis will be different, and often better, when the research process involves or is led by people who share the same standpoint, or even are, the research subjects. Hopefully universities will continue to recognise the benefits of participatory action research, recognise that the relationships it generates are a valuable asset and tool for managing risk, and not shy away from any ‘difficult risks’ it may present.


Image: 'victorian risk assessment cartoon' by John C Bullas BSc MSc PhD MCIHT MIAT via Flickr.  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbullas/7788230372

Could collective community power direct future public health research?

Guest post by Liam Spencer, Research Assistant, Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University

The Tyne & Wear Citizens are a local division of Citizens UK, a community organising group, which comprises of schools, universities, faith groups and charities. The group launched a ‘Commission on Mental Health’, which aimed to map problems, and identify solutions around mental health services in the region. In early 2018, The Tyne & Wear Citizens approached AskFuse [Ed – Fuse’s responsive research and evaluation service] in order to identify researchers to contribute to the analysis and production of their final report, ‘Living Well: Mental Health and Public Life in the North East’.

Through Professor Eileen Kaner (Newcastle University/Fuse), I had previously been involved in another AskFuse-supported project called ‘PROMOTE:NE’, which looked at young people’s mental health across the North East, and we met with Dr Peter van der Graaf and Lesley Haley from AskFuse to discuss this piece of work. Following this, I met with Revd Dr Simon Mason and Dr Joe Barton from the Tyne & Wear Citizens, and they were very happy to have me working with them, with supervisory support from Eileen.

The Commission had collected over 300 individual written ‘testimonies’ from people across the region, who articulated what was good, and what was not so good about mental health services in the region. It was these testimonies, which formed the basis of the Living Well report, and helped shape what the Citizens were asking local politicians and organisations to commit to. Prior to being involved in this piece of work, I had no understanding of what community organising was, and initially it was a challenge to grasp the concept of what the Commission were aiming to achieve, and how I could best contribute to this. In order to gain a better insight, I attended one of the Mental Health Commission Public Hearings in Durham, where key themes were discussed in front of a public audience, and a meeting of the Mental Health Action Team, where the group refined the ‘asks’ of the report.

Due to my interest in mental health, and experience in this area of research, I wrote the ‘Context’ section of the report, which aimed to set the tone, and provide the audience with relevant information about mental health in the region, and further afield. I was also able to provide relevant literature for, and make comments on the themed sections of the report, which were written by the editor.

Coming from a qualitative research background, it was interesting to learn about the methodologies employed by the Citizens for this piece of work. Community organising is a process where people who live locally come together into an organisation that acts in their shared self-interests. This method was used in order to best capture the voices of those who may not engage with traditional methods of research. This was one of the most fascinating insights I gained from the process, and I believe this method of collective power from the community, could be utilised in directing future public health research, and that groups such as these may well be a starting point for meaningful patient and public involvement work. 

The Citizens had a small pot of money to support our involvement, and seven working days were costed for me to undertake the work. The biggest challenge I faced was the tight timescale. I was working full-time across other projects, and was in the process of writing my MSc dissertation, so the work had to fit around these existing commitments, which meant working outside of normal work hours.

The final report was launched in November 2018, at an event attended by over 500 people at Newcastle’s Civic Centre. Eileen and I were delighted to attend and speak at the event, and it was fantastic to see so many individuals interested in finding out about the work. Although the timescale was tight, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to be involved in this important and innovative piece of work. I had a great working relationship with Simon and Joe, and was well supported by Eileen and Lesley. 

I am passionate about mental health research, and I am proud to have played a part in the production of a report, which aims to improve the lives of those in my home region.

Find out more about the work on the Citizens UK website.

What fairy tales and pinball machines can tell us about using research

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager / Fuse Knowledge Exchange Broker, Teesside University

Once upon a time... the UK Knowledge Mobilisation Forum 2019 took place in Newcastle at Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. The Forum brings together practitioners, researchers, students, administrators and public representatives who are engaged in the art and science of sharing knowledge and ensuring that it can be used. This year I was part of the organising group and we deliberately chose Seven Stories as location for the Forum with its focus on stories, which are an important mechanism for exchanging knowledge.

5 points awarded to Dan Wolstenholme of House Gryffindor 

Knowledge mobilisation wizards are also visiting #UKKMb2019 @fuse_online pic.twitter.com/010WtfEwh1

— UK KMb Forum (@UKKMbF) March 20, 2019

The Centre, spread out over seven floors, provided plenty of exercise to get to the different rooms for interactive poster sessions, knowledge fayres, fishbowls and workshops. The Harry Potter themed conference room also allowed me (not pictured right) to dress up as a Ravenclaw student while serving coffee. But the real highlight of the conference for me were the stories being shared by the key note speakers, Ishbel Smith from Heart in Mouth, who reflected on her practical experiences, and Andree le May and John Gabbay from the University of Southampton, who provided an in-depth research perspective. I will relate two of their stories: the first involves a house made of sweets, the second is about a pinball machine.

The power of stories is often underestimated in research but has gained some traction in academia, particularly for evaluating new interventions and because they make great impact case studies. At the same time, it has proven notoriously difficult to capture any impact in a story: we don’t really know what happens to research findings once they leave academia and trying to trace impact is like Hansel and Gretel clinging onto tiny bread crumbs in a large wood.

This brings me to the first story. Ishbel Smith used the story of Hansel and Gretel to highlight that the siblings missed the blindingly obvious (a house made of sweets is too good to be true and likely to be a trap), because they were too focused on the breadcrumbs and did not see the wider picture or context in which they were walking (a deep dark wood inhabited by a hungry witch). As knowledge mobilisers it is vital to understand where we are in a given situation to be able to unlock the relevant knowledge in that context.

Ishbel reiterated that contextual knowledge is just as important as content. Understanding the context in which research evidence is used and, perhaps more importantly, what happens to that evidence in a practice or policymaking context, is vital for mobilising it. To clarify this, Andree Le May and John Gabbay, told a story about how research evidence is transformed by using the analogy of a pinball machine.

In this second story, research evidence gets batted around across various groups of people within organisations as they interact with it. In each interaction, the evidence is slightly changed: people put their own spin on it and adjust it slightly for their own needs. The evidence literally receives a battering but in this process the evidence is made fit for a particular context and socially reconstructed. Like the pinball getting batted around inside the machine, with every contact the evidence changes shape. Perhaps not noticeably at first but you end up with something quite different and unrecognisable from the research evidence that you put into the dissemination process at the start. This means that, if you don’t understand as a researcher that your research findings will be transformed when it is being used by practitioners and policy makers, then you will never be able to find and follow it for your impact case studies.

Andree and John persuasively pointed out that the craft of knowledge mobilisation is not only using the right skills to get evidence into practice, but also to be able to be part of the story of how evidence is used. This requires not only technical skills (which are mostly studied by implementation science) but also the use of soft skills, such as the striking the right tone and style, being able to get your message across and contextualise knowledge; for example, do we know what the right problem and the right solution is for the context in which we are trying to mobilise knowledge?

Perhaps the most important skills we can develop for mobilising knowledge is how to enable learning: what did work and didn’t work in this context? How can we help others to apply research evidence into their own context? Stories provide a powerful tool for this: not to highlight what we have achieved as research institutions in the next REF submission, but to create a space to reflect on our experiences of using research evidence in different practice and policy context. To make these stories impactful, they have to be told by the people who used the research evidence. And we as researchers have to be willing to listen and be able to reflect on them with the evidence users.

Merry Christmas from everyone at Fuse

The power of cookies

Posted by Peter van der Graaf, AskFuse Research Manager / Fuse Knowledge Exchange Broker, Teesside University

With the festive season upon us, many are looking forward to indulging in a mince pie or two and getting stuck in some extra helpings of turkey or brandy-soaked Christmas pudding. This often sparks some well-intentioned health warnings from public health folk about the risks of overindulging, binge drinking and the increasing obesity epidemic. Not wanting to dismiss these important messages, I would like to focus on a different message in this blog: food as a great tool for knowledge mobilisation (making information useable and accessible through working collaboratively).

If there is one thing that I have learned in my time as AskFuse Research Manager, it is that nothing is as useful as biscuits for bringing people together and contributing to a positive meeting between researchers and health professionals. 

This insight started from my own weakness: I have an incurable sweet tooth and my colleagues and students have quickly learned to exploit this asset for plying me with Dutch liquorice and other delicacies into supporting their requests and theses. So, I decided to turn their own weapons on them, with surprising results.

Stuck in a challenging debate about the usefulness of research evidence for commissioning local health services? Bring some cookies and fruit (to balance; I am a public health researcher after all!) and you will find that conversations all of sudden move in more fruitful directions.

Although my experience told me that cookies are a great conversation starter when brokering knowledge, I did not realise until recently that this was an area of serious academic study. In a recent paper published in Medical Education[1], Michael Hessler and colleagues from the University Hospital of Münster in Germany decided to put the power of cookies to the test and conducted their own Randomised Controlled Trial while delivering an emergency medicine course.

They were worried about the evaluations at the end of their course and suspected that these were not the measures of quality that the University was hoping for. Therefore, they were looking for a ‘content-unrelated’ intervention that would alter their evaluation results significantly and prove that their evaluations were seriously under-baked.

Third‐year medical students (n=118) were randomly allocated into 20 groups, 10 of which had free access to 500g of chocolate cookies during the course sessions (cookie group!) and 10 of which did not (control group). The groups had the same teachers and were taught the same content. After the course, all students were asked to complete a 38‐question evaluation form.

The results were very appetising: the cookie group evaluated teachers significantly better than the control group, they rated the course material as considerably better and overall satisfaction scores for the course were significantly higher. In summary: the provision of chocolate cookies had a significant effect on course evaluation.

One might conclude that course evaluations are seriously flawed but I prefer the ‘cookie-jar-is-always-half-full’ interpretation: providing cookies to participants is a great way to boost results! The German research adds baking powder to my own observations in UK knowledge brokering: cookies are a great way to boost exchange of knowledge and relationship building in conversations and meetings.

The ingredients of each meeting and conversation might be different but they all need a baking agent to rise to the occasion. So, whatever you do this Christmas, if you would like to avoid awkward questions during social and family gatherings about ‘what it is that you do as a researcher’ or ‘when are you finally going to finish your PhD?’, just bring a plate of cookies and subtly but swiftly change the conversation to a sweeter topic.

Happy Christmas!

Reference:

1. Hessler M, Pöpping DM, Hollstein H, Ohlenburg H, Arnemann PH, Massoth C, Seidel LM, Zarbock A, Wenk M. Availability of cookies during an academic course session affects evaluation of teaching. Medical education. 2018 Oct;52(10):1064-72, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/medu.13627

Merry Christmas from Fuse

We would like to wish all of our readers and contributors a very happy festive season. We will return in the New Year - why not make a resolution to blog in 2018 and send us your posts?

Spice up your research life: match-making in public health

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

Three years ago, we had a crazy idea: what if Fuse had its own dating service for academic researchers and health professionals? Instead of innovative research findings gathering dust on lonely bookshelves, we wanted to provide a stage for academics and health professionals to meet and discuss how that evidence could be used in practice. We were keen to facilitate early conversations on how to collaborate on research that is useful, timely, independent, and easily understood.

Instead of health practitioners wandering around University campuses, trying to find the right academic to work with, we envisioned an open door leading to a welcoming friendly-faced guide. Someone who could do the matchmaking and help them to find or create evidence for spicing up their policies or interventions.

After checking our idea with various health practitioners in the region to make sure that it would make their hearts beat faster, we launched AskFuse in June 2013: Fuse’s very own rapid responsive and evaluation service with a dedicated match-maker (research manager) in post – that’s me!

Coming from an applied research background in social sciences, this post was certainly a challenge but also an incredibility exiting opportunity to develop something new with the support of an enthusiastic group of people across Fuse. The job has been a steep learning curve, but also a great way to meet a lot of people working in public health across the region, getting to understand their passions and … what keeps them up at night.

I quickly learned that there were many great public health projects and programmes being developed and delivered locally that deserved more attention and research (e.g. My Sporting Chance, Ways to Wellness, Boilers on Prescription).  I was encouraged by a real appetite among academics to support this work but felt the frustrations of health professionals caused by budget cuts and the need to decommission services rather than to develop them. I also noticed the limited research evidence informing some of these decision-making processes and the lack of knowledge among academics about how to influence these processes and mobilise their research evidence effectively.

AskFuse has supported more than 270 enquiries from a wide range of sectors, organisations and on topics ranging from Laughter Ball Yoga to Whole Systems Approaches to obesity. We have helped to develop new interventions and evaluated existing ones, made research evidence accessible and understandable, organised events to explore new topics, and pioneered new methodologies; all in collaboration with our policy and practice partners. We have also made mistakes, misunderstood procurement procedures, were not able to help in time, could not find relevant expertise or did not always follow-up on conversations.

Despite these challenges - or perhaps because of them - we have been able to build a dating service that (I think/hope) is perceived as useful by our policy and practice partners, that has helped us to build relationships (even in times of considerable system upheaval with public health moving to local authorities), and has informed new research agendas for Fuse going forward over the next five years as a member of the national School for Public Health Research.

As the service is expanding and my role is changing (I recently became a NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow, which I will talk about in another blog), we are looking for a new AskFuse Research Associate to work with me on strengthening the service and taking it in new directions. If you are interested in mobilising knowledge, fancy a challenge and want to work with a fantastic team, why not be part of it?