Allied Health | REF 2021 | ��Ƶ, Edinburgh

Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy

Key statistics

��In the Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy REF 21 unit of assessment, based on work undertaken in the seven year period 2014-2020:

We submitted 25 researchers, of whom 17 were women.
As indexed in the Web of Science, ��Ƶ staff in this field have published approximately 280 peer-reviewed papers, in addition to delivering 170 peer-reviewed conference presentations.
��Ƶ researchers within Centre for Person-centred Practice Research have established collaborations with researchers in over 27 countries worldwide (e.g. Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, China, New Zealand and 13 European countries). This collaboration has been consolidated through the Person-centred Practice International Community of Practice (PcP-ICoP), an international research community of practice/research hosted at ��Ƶ.

Examples of our work

Notable successes include Margaret Smith who developed through an early research career route to leading the team working on the Lydia Osteoporosis Project. The Lydia Osteoporosis Project is a research, education, implementation and dissemination project with frontline healthcare staff and people with osteoporosis. The aims are to raise awareness of osteoporosis and the increased risk of fracture amongst frontline healthcare staff caring for people with the condition. The team focuses on investigating the implications of osteoporosis for moving and handling activities with older people in acute care and on promoting person-centred safe and effective practice.

Our staff and partners benefit from our on-campus Scottish Enterprise Business Gateway service, which provides bespoke support for researchers in enterprise creation and collaboration with industry. As a result, for the past three years, our Centre for Person-centred Practice Research has hosted Britain’s first virtual reality social enterprise, Viarama and the health promotion social enterprise “Lead a Bright Future”.

We have delivered a range of research projects in partnership with health services and third sector organisations (e.g. Dr David Banks’s partnership with COPE Scotland; Dr Anne Williams’s partnership with the UK Lipodema charity; Prof Tom Mercer and Prof Nigel Gleeson’s partnership with the Hibernian Football club; Dr Marietta van der Linden’s partnership with the Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association; Prof Brendan McCormack’s partnership with The Life Changes Trust; Dr Cathy Bulley’s engagement with The UK MS Society, The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the College of Radiographers; as well as Dr Duncan Pentland and Dr Fiona Maclean’s association with the Royal College of Occupational Therapists Strategic Research Group).

The majority of our registered PhD candidates are funded through external sources. We believe that this indicates a growing reputation for both the quality of our research activity and of our research degree training that is increasingly attractive to external funders and self-funding PhD candidates. Most of these students are wholly or partially externally funded through research awards or via government or institutional awards from countries as diverse as Bahrain, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Malta, Australia and Canada.��

Professor McCormack’s leadership, as an internationally recognised leader in person-centred practice and research, has created a pathway for career progression within this part of ��Ƶ through the consolidation and widening of our collaboration with global partners and the establishment of ��Ƶ as a recognised leader in the field. This has also led to the recruitment of other leading academics in the field.

Arising from research in Dietetics, Nutrition and Biological Sciences, the University’s Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation (SCFDI) works with the Scottish food and drink sector to access the global market for healthy and functional food and innovation. SCFDI has an established position in reinforcing the reputation of the food and drink sector in Scotland, recognising that working with industry has more immediate impact and is more cost effective than clinical solutions. Industry knowledge exchange funding has been secured from sources such as Campden BRI, Tesco and other major UK retailers, Diageo/Johnny Walker, Scottish Food and Drink Federation, the Start Up Drinks Lab and ready meal manufacturers such as Malcolm Allan, Bells, Scottish Shellfish. SCFDI will be in the future be based the Innovation Hub to be constructed on land adjacent to the ��Ƶ campus, funded by the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.

Read our full case study on our work on Person-centredness - transforming nursing & healthcare cultures

Read our full case study on our work on Developing a classification system for Frame Running (future paralympic sport)��

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