Igniting my future career with a SPARC

Guest post by Naoimh McMahon, Postgraduate student, University of Central Lancashire

Naoimh recently passed her viva and won Research Student of the Year at the North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards 2019.

Around about now the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will be letting early career researchers know if their applications to Round 5 of the Short Placement Awards for Research Collaboration (SPARC) scheme have been successful.

These awards provide funding to allow trainees within the NIHR infrastructure to spend time in other parts of the NIHR to network, acquire new skills and expertise, and establish collaborations with experts in their field. To be eligible for this round of the SPARC scheme, applicants have to be undertaking a formal research training programme, such as a PhD, and be funded by an NIHR award. Additionally, applicants needed to be based in part of the NIHR infrastructure that has a specific remit to build research capacity, such as the NIHR Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs). In 2017 I applied for Round 4 and while I met both of these criteria, I was also facing the final year of my PhD with a lot of writing still left to do! However, this would be my last chance to apply for the SPARC award and so it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.

For my PhD, I was based at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, and my research was funded through an NIHR CLAHRC North West Coast doctoral studentship. This work was looking at how people negotiate different discourses within the field of health inequalities and how such discourses work to shape thinking and action. With this interest, and a new-found penchant for the North of England, I knew exactly where I wanted to spend my time during a SPARC placement – it had to be in the North East with Fuse! And so towards the end of October, I emailed Professor Clare Bambra (@ProfBambra) to make my case and see if she might be happy to act as my host and supervisor for a placement. After what I can only assume was a glowing reference from one of my PhD supervisors, Clare was on board and we booked in a call to discuss plans for the SPARC proposal.

The requirements for a SPARC award are that you provide a training programme for the placement and you justify the proposed benefit of the programme for your own research and the potential impact for your future career development. After talking through different ideas and options, and considering the short time frame of the placement, Clare and I settled on a training programme oriented around evidence synthesis on the topic of gambling and health inequalities. At the time, gambling was becoming increasingly topical but there was little written about the effects of interventions on social and health inequalities. This focus for the placement was seen as a good fit as Clare had a strong interest in this topic and it would allow me to apply insights from my PhD research to a new body of literature. A co-authored peer-reviewed publication was to be the main output from the placement and we stressed the opportunities provided by the wider Fuse infrastructure for networking during the placement. In March 2018, I found out that my application had been successful and in April I started my six-week stint at Newcastle University.

True to our word, we did exactly what we promised in the proposal! During our scoping searches of the gambling literature we identified a number of recent systematic reviews which synthesised evidence on different types of interventions for reducing gambling behaviour and gambling related harm, and so we felt it would be of value to collate the findings from across these reviews into a single umbrella review. The resulting paper has now been published in Addictive Behaviours. Reflective of the wider health inequalities literature this review has highlighted the lack of consideration of equity effects of intervention strategies in both primary research and evidence syntheses in the field of gambling. Additionally, it has illustrated that there is likely to exist an ‘inverse evidence law’ in this field where there is the least amount of research and evidence for interventions that are most likely to be effective. A big thank you to Katie Thomson (@katiehthomson) and Eileen Kaner (@EileenKaner) for all of their help and input with this review.

 Along with completing this work during my SPARC placement I had the chance to meet people from the Fuse health inequalities programme; get to know some lovely new office mates; attend Fuse’s 10th birthday event and meet people working in local authorities and third sector organisations; meet Fuse Director Ashley Adamson; and attend a Quarterly Research Meeting on eating and drinking patterns in young adults. Last, but certainly not least, I attended and presented my PhD research at the 4th International Fuse Conference which was held in Vancouver in May of last year (see here for a related post on the conference).

In October 2019, the NIHR will launch Round 6 of the scheme and for anybody who may be thinking of applying, here are some things to keep in mind when preparing an application:

• Be ambitious about where you want to spend your time – if you don’t ask you don’t get!
• Develop a training programme that works for both you and your host supervisor
• Try and co-ordinate dates to fit in training or conferences at your host institution
• Detail specific outputs in your application and allow yourself time to get these finished after the placement has finished.

Taking on this type of placement was going to be demanding at any point during a PhD but from my experience it is definitely worth the time and energy. Thank you especially to Clare and Katie, and to everyone at Fuse that made the placement such a positive and worthwhile experience.

Images:

1. Image by Pexels on Pixabay
2. Jeff Kubina from the milky way galaxy [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

400 not out

Posted by Mark Welford, Fuse Communications Officer, Teesside University

This is the 400th post on the Fuse blog and in the spirit of using arbitrary milestones as worthy of note, I thought it was time for some (blog) post-match analysis.

Brian Lara who holds the record for the highest individual score in a Test innings
 after scoring 400 not out against England playing for the West Indies in 2004.

Over the last five-and-half-years, we have had 399 posts, written by 116 authors, and more than 395,000 page views. There has also been a lot of #fuseblog twittering, coffee room chats, and (you surely didn’t think it could be any other way?) blog-related committee discussions.

We even won a UK blog award last year (not that we mention it much!) and were shortlisted in two award categories earlier this year. But shortlisted isn’t winning and on the train back from those awards in April, I contemplated what we could do to improve the blog or - dare I say it - if the blog had run its course, done its job, had its time.

In academia, more than any sector that I’ve worked in (and I’ve worked in a few) you are encouraged to STOP, put down your machete, and climb above the canopy to see if the direction that you’re heading in is getting you to where you want to go. Academics will quite happily interrupt you in mid-flow to ask: ‘so what?’, ‘what impact are we making?’, ‘who are we reaching?’.

Since taking the wheel from blog founder Jean Adams I have enjoyed myself. I have learnt a bit about community and herding cats, I have made some real-life and virtual friends. I have written the odd post, although admittedly not as many as Jean, and I have enjoyed the discipline of having to write 500 -700 words for public consumption (usually when I can’t find anyone else to post).

I think the other writers have enjoyed it too, once they’d got past their initial reservations.

From all of this, I surmise that people value both reading and contributing to the blog. But I don’t have a clear view of who you are. You also seem to be discussing it in some forums. But you aren’t leaving comments on the blog itself. We have had a grand total of 480 comments posted, of which 234 were spam. So that’s 246 sensible comments. From 395,000 views.

So, I would now like to invite you to use the comment box below to post your thoughts on the blog so far. What sort of things do you like? What stuff would you rather we skipped? What would you like more of? Who are you? You don’t need to tell everyone your name, but what got you here? Why are you interested in this blog? What would make you more interested?

It isn’t that tricky:

1. Depending on how you got to this page, you either start typing straight in the white box, or you need to click the orange link “No comments” at the bottom of the post to get the white box to appear.
2. After writing your thoughts, click on the “Comment as” pull-down. If you know what any of the branded options mean, select one. If not, just chose “Name/URL” or “Anonymous”. Then do the ‘prove you’re not a robot’ thing and you’re done.

I’ll get an email. If you’re not flogging Viagra or using a barrage of abuse, I’ll approve your comment and you’ll be published.

And, just before you get to work: thanks. Thanks to the writers, the readers, the reviewers, the commenters, the retweeters, and the lurkers. See you all again at the next arbitrary milestone.

The one where we ask you to vote...

Posted by Mark Welford, Fuse Communications Officer, Teesside University

This post is a little like those episodes of Friends in which one of the cast says: “Do you remember the time when [cue wobbly vertical lines]…” and the rest of the 22-23mins is made up of clips from previous shows.

Courtesy of photobucket.com/user/xuyu79/media/blog/s7/s07e18 / Warner Bros.

Let me take you back to a post on Thursday 7 January in which we made a shameless plea to ask for your votes in the UK Blog Awards 2016.  In that post we told you how the blog’s 334 posts had received just over 167,000 views.  Eleven months on and 40 additional blog posts later, the page views have risen to nearly 325,000 - a fantastic achievement I hope you’ll agree!  I discovered this when an ambitious academic asked me if I could provide them with some killer stats about the blog to support their bid for a promotion. The power this blog wields!

This year we have had posts covering everything from Dry January, the ‘nanny state’, animation, Jamie Oliver's school dinner and sugar tax campaigns, to ‘fat shaming’, indigenous Australians, Baywatch, energy drinks, Grandmothers, e-cigarettes, and 'legal highs'.

Five years on from the blog's inception and we have reached the point where people are actively approaching us and generously giving up their time to write posts, rather than having to send in our crack team (the fear inducing) ‘blog working group’ to chase, harry and cajole*.  Could this - and the increased viewing figures - have something to do with the little matter of winning a UK Blog Award last year?  I'd like to think so.

And now, we come to the crux of this post.  It is you, our dear readers and contributors that make the blog a success and it is thanks to you that we won a national award.  So we've decided to go for it again in the UK Blog Awards 2017!

Here comes the shameless plug

The blog has again been entered into two categories: 'Health and Social Care', and 'Education'.  You can vote for us in either category but of course we would really appreciate it if you voted for us in both.

Vote now by following this link

The above link takes you to our profile page on the UK Blog Awards website in which we have chosen two of our favourite posts from 2016:

• From school dinners to sugar tax: Jamie Oliver to the rescue! - Victoria McGowan looks at whether celebrity endorsement has really helped some of the biggest food campaigns.
• England won’t make it past the quarter finals - Clare Bambra analyses the huge health divides across Europe ahead of Euro 2016 (with added infographics, video and social media content).

Voting closes at 10am on Monday 19 December.  One vote per email address.

Hopefully it won't be a maple syrup bottle we'll be holding aloft in celebration come April 2017!

Thank you for your support.

*We do still need your posts!  Please contact me (m.welford@tees.ac.uk) if you would like to write a post for the Fuse blog. Here’s how to take part.

You are now reading the award winning Fuse blog

Posted by Mark Welford and Emma Dorée, Fuse Communications team, Teesside University

You may recall that in January we used this platform to make a shameless plea inviting readers to vote for the Fuse blog in the UK Blog Awards and a month later you may have heard the news that we had been shortlisted in the categories of Education, and Health and Social Care.

Well… (drum roll) …. We only went and won!  That’s right, you are now reading an award winning blog – fancy contributing?!

Last Friday (29 April), we took the Fuse blog monster on a road trip to the big smoke, that there London, where the streets are paved with, well… paving stones to attend the awards ceremony, in eager anticipation.

The awards ceremony was held at the swanky Park Plaza Hotel in Westminster, London and it is safe to say that it more than exceeded our expectations.  The invitation advised that we ‘dress to impress’ but some of the attire on show would have made Lady Gaga and James Bond feel underdressed.

We were welcomed to the event, themed on Roald Dahl’s The BFG with free drinks and canapes (not to mention all the frogsquinkers, buzzwangles, and bugwhiffles we could handle), while we networked with other bloggers and even the Big Friendly Giant himself. The most exciting part however was still to come: the awards ceremony itself.

Tech Reporter Kate Russell (you might know her from BBC show Click) hosted the evening and provided a great commentary, making every blogger there feel very welcome.  Her quirky comments worked to relax the atmosphere and ease frayed nerves.

Each category had two blogs that were highly commended by the judges, followed by an overall winner.  As the Education category came up on screen, we watched in anticipation - the Fuse Blog wasn't announced as Highly Commended - oh well there was still the other category - but then to our surprise as the overall winner of the category!

Having let out a little scream of excitement (and possibly the odd expletive), we went up onto the stage to collect our trophy – a rather lethal looking glass affair - and have our photograph taken with Kate and the judges. It was a surreal moment and very much unexpected with a dash of relief as there were no speeches.

Obligatory award selfie

Once the presentations were over, we were invited to have our photograph taken with the other winners. After which it was time to celebrate properly with more free prosecco (consumed in moderation), posh food and of course a little bit of disco dancing.

This was a great event to be a part of and the venue made it feel even more special and exciting. As the night drew to a close and we collected our certificate and goody bags (with complementary BFG themed dream jars), the fact that we had actually come away as winners had not yet sunk in - it still hasn't now to be honest!

Dream jars - also good for storing ginger biscuits

  
 This is a fantastic achievement for Fuse, as more than two thousands blogs were submitted. There were more than seventy eight thousand votes in total and it is great to think that the Fuse Blog has such a loyal following and a lot of support.

A special thank you must go to Jean Adams who founded the blog in 2011 and to everyone who has contributed over the years.  The posts have sparked great discussion and helped our readers learn what it is really like to work in public health.  Our many writers make the Fuse blog what it is.

We really hope that you will continue to enjoy reading our posts and don’t forget, if you would like to contribute to the Fuse Blog then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

If you would like to discuss a potential blog post or have something already written then please get in touch with Emma Dorée (E.Doree@tees.ac.uk).

The blog monster returns with a shameless plug

Posted by Emma Dorée, Fuse Communications Assistant

Just over a year ago, we wrote about how far the blog had come since it hatched and it’s safe to say that the waistline of the - now fully grown - ravenous blog monster continues to expand.

Feed me, Seymour!

Since its creation in May 2010, the Fuse blog has had just over 167,000 views and we’ve posted 334 blogs – a great achievement, right?!

As a result, we wanted to do something to celebrate this success and to see if we could reward all the contributors that make the Fuse blog what it is, so we have entered the UK Blog Awards 2016!

The blog has been entered into two categories: 'Health and Social Care', and 'Education'. You can vote for us in either category but of course we would really appreciate it if you voted for us in both.

You can vote for the Fuse blog once a day by following this link. We will be encouraging people to do this via our social media feeds but it would be even better if you could spread the word and encourage your friends and family to vote for us too.


Click here to vote for the Fuse blog now

Most importantly however, we still need people to continue sending us blog posts so if you work in public health then please get in touch.

We want to hear about your aims, priorities and challenges or which issues you think need to be brought in to the public eye and debated. Could you give an insight into your role within public health for those not directly involved? Or is there a public health campaign in your area that you wish to promote or a topical news issue or event happening which could coincide with your post?

We post blogs at least once a week and publicise them via our Facebook page and Twitter account. The blog has its own website but of course, you can also view the blogs by visiting the Fuse website.

Email your posts to me (E.Doree@tees.ac.uk) and please let us know if you think there is anything we can do to improve the blog.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the blog so far. You have sparked great discussion and helped our readers learn what it is really like to work in public health, no matter what your role is.

The UK Blog Awards 2016 competition closes at 9pm on the 25 January so don’t forget to keep voting for us as much as possible until then!

Photograph ‘into the mouth’ by Len "Doc" Radin via Flickr.com © 2005: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drurydrama/1079598181