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In response to growing calls for competence-based continuing professional development across healthcare professions, Professor Ian Bates and colleagues at the UCL School of Pharmacy have led multi-disciplinary collaborative research to develop frameworks for the professional development of pharmacists. These have been adopted across the UK, and are now the norm for pharmacist development. In addition, the cumulative evidence base was used by the Department of Health to establish the first NHS Consultant Pharmacist posts in England. The frameworks are increasingly being adopted for use in different countries around the world and, most recently, have underpinned a global framework for practitioner development under the auspices of the World Health Organization and UNESCO.
Research directed by Andy Friedman (Management), has had impact through the Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) which was established at the University in 1998. This encouraged professional bodies to adopt:
a) new governance structures and processes facilitating strategic decision-making;
b) CPD policies, to make them mandatory and measure them by outputs, thereby raising competency and evidence for it among millions of professionals.
Early adopters from 2001 contributed to benchmark data produced through PARN, adding to the subsequent research impact by encouraging further adopters. For post-2008 impacts and adopters see sources [b], [c], [d], [f], [j] for governance changes and [c], [h], [i].for CPD.
Strategy often fails to be implemented effectively at operational levels. The Japanese developed an approach called Hoshin Kanri to address this, by integrating top-down strategy with bottom-up operational decisions. However, it was not easy to translate Hoshin Kanri directly into Western organisations. ESRC funded research undertaken at the Norwich Business School by Barry Witcher (at the University of East Anglia 1996-2013) aimed to address this by co-developing a Hoshin Kanri model with UK-based practitioners. This model has then been used by a range of organisations and consultancies to support the implementation of Hoshin Kanri in a Western business context, resulting in improved strategic planning and decision making.
This case generated new ways of thinking among a self-selecting sample of `senior' PR practitioners and delivered personal autonomy and professional development. The term `senior' is commonly employed in PR practice and formed the basis for discussion on practitioner conceptualisation of professional expertise. Critical interventions extracted practitioner accounts of their work, methodologies and impacts, and changes in critical, conceptual thinking took place. The project created an awareness of subjectivity in everyday practice among a collective category of workers with regard to their information and knowledge expertise, with implications for the practice community and wider society.
The North East of England has seen a rapid decline in traditional heavy industry, leading to high levels of unemployment. The Business School recognised that traditional pedagogies were less than effective at engaging managers within the region, and developed a programme of on-going research to inform management curriculum development. Initially the research focused on developing an innovative model of work-based learning, and has subsequently developed into four core themes of professional identity, inter-professional working, creativity and coaching. This case study describes the developments since 2001 and the resulting impact since 2008 on policy, local business and individuals.
As a direct result of methodological research led by Professor Ray Pawson at Leeds, `realist evaluation' has provided a new lens through which to assess and develop social programmes. It has critically changed the apparatus of evidenced-based policy and the way in which policy research is commissioned and utilised. Through advisory work, training package provision, partnership-research and professional exchange, this `realist' perspective has formed a new standard in social programme evaluation, and is used by commissioners in the UK and internationally to frame their interventions across policy domains, including education, environment, criminal justice, and health and social care.
Diamond's research paper (Diamond 2001) on the management of change within major urban regeneration programmes directly led to him working with Voluntary and Community Sector organisations in South London (2003 - 08); regional VCS networks in the North West (2008 — present); the Leadership and Development group of VCS leaders in the North West (2010 — present) and national VCS organisations (2005 — present). The impact (as set out below) can be seen in terms of the number of key leaders and activists supported and facilitated by Diamond to reflect upon their work, their learning and, as a consequence, their strategic goals.