Welcome to the Autumn edition of our newsletter. It's an exciting time as we start the extension research projects, offer yet more training and development opportunities (our biggest yet) and continue our work to ensure our research makes a real impact.
Contents
What's next
The waiting game on the next ARC Wessex is over
As some of you may know the National Institute for Health and Care Research opened applications for the next round of Applied Research Collaborations on Wednesday 6th November, after a few delays in the process as the new Government settled in.
Professor Catherine Bowen, director designate for the next ARC, has been working very closely with Professor Alison Richardson, our current director to prepare for this moment and some of you may have been involved in the process of mapping out potential research themes for the ARC 2 application.
There is now a process of putting together elements of the application in consultation with stakeholders and partners. The deadline for our application is January 29th 2025.
It is a busy time as we try to bring everyone together, please feel free to get in touch via arcwessex@soton.ac.uk if you have any questions or email Jamie.stevenson@soton.ac.uk to arrange a chat.
New fellows joining us
ARC Wessex has been awarded £560,000 over 3 years to develop Knowledge Mobilisation capacity across Wessex. Knowledge mobilisation (KM) is a way to help researchers share their research with the people who can use it. It is about sharing knowledge between different communities to create new knowledge to promote change.
We have appointed four new fellows who will initially focussing on mental health (spanning health continuum and lifespan) and 2) Community health and care services (including domiciliary care and care homes).
In parallel to the programme ARC Wessex has invested in two Public Policy Fellows to work with the Knowledge Mobilisation fellows to broaden our capacity for informing and responding to policy makers about our research activities.
Spotting the hidden signs of abuse in the most vulnerable
Nicky, talking to reporter Sally Simmons from ITV News
Last month Dr Michelle Myall and Dr Susi Lund launched the DALLI Toolkit at a hybrid event attracting 100 attendees.
DALLI (Domestic Abuse and Life Limiting Illness) is a research project that has worked with health and social care professionals in hospice, palliative and end of life care, as well as carers and people with lived experience, and frontline domestic abuse organisations to develop and refine a toolkit to help health and social care professionals to feel confident to identify and discuss domestic abuse with patients and carers. It's available online or in a printed booklet. You can see details of the project and the toolkit here.
We were fortunate to have one very brave woman Nicky, talk to us about her experience of abuse while she was being treated for cancer. Her story was reported on ITV news and in the iNewspaper.
Long-covid could be costing the UK billions
Working days lost to long Covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year, as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, according to a new study involving ARC Wessex and the University of Southampton. Dr Katherine Bradbury, the ARC Wessex Digital Health lead, helped work on creating an app that can support people to recover.
ADHD Success for Cortese
Professor Samuele Cortese has been recognised by the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (the largest
association of child and adolescent psychiatry worldwide) for the
The paper shows that we can't use neuropsychological tests as
standalone tools for the diagnosis of ADHD. The diagnosis needs
to be based on expert opinion from a trained professional.
Healthy Communities Theme gets two new leads
Healthy Communities now has a new lead - Professor Nisreen Alwan (MBE - who has taken over from Professor Julie Parkes after 5 years of leading this ARC research theme. Whilst Julie will still be leading research projects in the ARC portfolio, she is now devoting a significant amount of time the NIHR Public Health Research Support Service
Joining Nisreen, who has been working on public health issues like obesity and deprivation, is Professor Dianna Smith as deputy theme lead, from the school of Geography and Environmental Sciences in the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Southampton.
Cities get research boost
We are very pleased to be collaborating with the Southampton and Portsmouth Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRCs). Members of ARC leadership group attended the launch of the Southampton HDRC mid-October and are looking forward to working closely with the team. Portsmouth’s Development Year ends in December 2024 with progress expected to their full HDRC Award begins in January 2025, and involves the City Council, University and HIVE Portsmouth.
The research generated by the HDRCs will focus on the building blocks of health, for example, factors such as housing, education, air quality and access to green spaces, which impact on the health and wellbeing of communities and can create inequalities across the cities.
ARC Wessex at 5 - How we're making a difference
On October 1, 2024 - ARC Wessex was officially 5 years old. What an eventful few years it's been, not least with the impact of the Covid pandemic just as research projects were starting out.
Ever adaptable, ARC Wessex turned to face the challenges facing the NHS and our care system with projects aimed at helping the system cope with Covid-19. Our clinicians, many of them, returned to the frontline of the NHS.
We are proud of what we have achieved in those five years. We have produced a report to capture many of the ARCs achievements– you can read more here - please feel free to share it with colleagues.
Internships and pre-application awards
A flyer for the internship awards opening in November
One of the key aims of the ARC is to grow research capacity across Wessex, and to date we have awarded for more than 70 internships, with additional funding from NHS England and the Southampton Academy of Research (SOAR).
Now we are looking to increase that tally by 20, and this time you can also apply as a team leader.
Details are on our website here
In addition to this we have just heard the NIHR has awarded us further funding to allow us to offer Pre-Application awards to four post-doctoral health and care professionals. Details for those awards are also on our website here
BlueSky's the limit?
Some of you may have noticed we have opened up some new social media channels - including BlueSky - an alternative to the rather heated X (formerly Twitter)
You can see all our social media channels here
BlueSky had a bit of a rush in people and organisations joining up following some comments made by its owner Elon Musk, and the targeting of health leaders and academics by 'trolls'.
Things may have settled on X for a while and many organisations like ARC Wessex and the NIHR still use it, but that may well be because BlueSky has stalled in the numbers of people joining up. It is also developing as a platform, much like Twitter did in the heydays of Facebook. So maybe we give it time to build, and I would encourage people to join up so we can create a safe space to talk about research and practice.
Read more on BlueSky here
Thank you for taking the time to read our update - our next edition will be in January 2025
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