Half a million pounds to drive knowledge mobilisation

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.

The funding is part of a £7.8 Million investment from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)

Professor Alison Richardson, Director of NIHR ARC Wessex said, “We are really pleased to be able to take forward this new programme where we can put our research at the very heart of the health and care system in Wessex. This will bring to bear the strength of our applied research right where it is needed, and with the people who need it.”

Professor Alison Richardson

We are using the award to appoint four fellows initially focussing on mental health and Community health and care (including domiciliary care and care homes).

To determine these areas of need we involved Hampshire & Isle of Wight (HIoW) and Dorset Integrated Care Boards, provider organisations and Health Innovation Wessex to create a programme directly relevant to needs of patients, service users, carers and health and care systems. We are aligning KM fellows to specific programmes, co-produced with stakeholders, to embed the fellows directly with relevant delivery teams. 

Our knowledge mobilisation team will revolve around promoting system-wide approaches that get the right information to the right people in the right format at the right time. 

We will build capacity and capability to maximise impact of research by:

• Identifying what knowledge to share and with who

• Identifying the best ways to share (how) and when to share knowledge

• Scoping organisational and system capacity development needs for knowledge mobilisation

• Co-developing and implementing programmes to address major strategic issues - accumulating learning and working towards sustainability

In parallel to the programme ARC Wessex has invested in two additional Public Policy Fellows to work with the Knowledge Mobilisation fellows to broaden our capacity for informing and responding to policy makers on our research activities.