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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.
Research on the assessment and governance of research, carried out at Oxford since 2004, has contributed to changes in conceptions of quality and impact underpinning research assessment systems in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, and substantially influenced strategic action in funding bodies, professional societies, and higher education institutions, nationally and internationally. Oancea and Furlong's work on quality in applied and practice-based research contributed to a more inclusive definition of applied research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and to the Economic and Social Research Council's interpretation of the "excellence with impact" agenda for the social sciences. It has also been used as the basis for assessment criteria for postgraduate programmes, professional development, and practitioner courses in many institutions. Oancea's recent research was used in strategic documents and resources by, for example, the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), the Strategic Forum for Research in Education (SFRE), and the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET).
Work-related stress and work-life conflict are the biggest health and safety challenges in the UK with considerable costs to the economy as well as employees and their families. Research conducted by Professor Kinman over the last 15 years has made a significant contribution to enhancing knowledge of the mechanisms underpinning work-related well-being and ways in which this can be enhanced. In recognition of the unique nature of Kinman's work, the UoB is widely recognised as a centre of excellence in this field. Kinman has advised organisations, predominantly in the public sector, on ways to manage stress and enhance work-life balance and resilience. The significance and reach of this work has been demonstrated, most notably with academic employees and social workers. It has been used to develop interventions and informed changes to policy and practice at a national level in these sectors.
1.1Through the development of national Research Development Fellowships (RDFs) and the national Exploratory Research programme, SUNCETT has worked in collaboration with policy professionals from the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), (now the Education and Training Foundation, ETF) to contribute to changes to public service practices and policy guidelines for the sector. Through the same work, SUNCETT has improved standards of teaching, learning and practitioner research across the sector using a model for educational improvement, originally applied in schools by Fielding et al (2005),described as `Joint Practice Development' (JPD). Through JDP, SUNCETT has enabled policy professionals and practitioners to incrementally improve practice across the FAVE sector in research-informed, realistic and sustainable ways. These applications of JPD have been led nationally by SUNCETT and the improvements in practice achieved as a result of this approach have been recognised externally in the form of the LSIS Legacy Report (2013) (Source 1), in various OFSTED inspection reports (Source 2) and by the British Education Research Association in, Why Educational Research Matters (BERA, 2013) (Source 3).
Clinical, observational and biographical research developed at UEL has produced and supported the novel application of a practice-near methodology adapted to evaluate social work practice and social problems. The benefits of this are described here in the context of two illustrative examples exemplifying the adaptation of the UEL methodology to address self-harm/suicide prevention and the safeguarding of children's rights in London's African communities. Those benefits accrue to practitioners, policy makers, community organisations and individual health and social care service users, and include: the delivery of training leading to positive changes in professional practice; and contributions to discussion, debate and policy and guideline formulation. The research has also been used to enhance public awareness of important social and cultural issues.
Research into understanding and addressing the gaps between evidence and practice in health care has been conducted and applied at the University of Manchester. Working within the Department of Health funded National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for Greater Manchester, research teams have applied an evidence-based approach to knowledge mobilisation to improve the identification and management of two vascular related conditions: impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). As a result of the initial pilot projects in Greater Manchester 1863 new CKD patients have been identified with the success leading to a further implementation programme that has spread to other areas of the UK. The IGT pilot project has directly led to the improved health of targeted patients in two areas of Greater Manchester.
Inter-professional collaboration to prevent social exclusion of children and young people is an emergent work practice, reflecting major changes in welfare policy in the UK and beyond. Research conducted at Oxford since 2005 on these systemic changes, and the new demands they have made on practitioners and services, has contributed to the reconfiguration of children's services locally and nationally, and to the analysis and planning of services beyond the UK. Knowledge exchange is built into the studies to produce immediate and long-term impact on practices and policies, and findings have been integrated into commissioned reports, teaching materials for service leaders, and practitioner and policy summaries.
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.
Life for those who have had a stroke across England has been improved through assessment of their needs six months after their stroke, followed up with support so that these needs are met. The assessment tool used was developed at the University of Manchester using knowledge from applied research into knowledge translation and service improvement, which emphasised the need for tailored, context-sensitive approaches to implementation of evidence. The flexible assessment tool (GM-SAT) that can be used by a range of practitioners is now in use across England in a range of providers, enabling the fulfilment of national strategy and improved care for these patients.
A corpus of research developed over twenty years brings together experience and expertise of staff, students and researchers at Birmingham City University in the Early Years (EY) cluster. This has had effects on practice in contexts in which national and international EY policy, leadership and pedagogy are developed and produced, enacted and contested. It has affected specific areas of learning and development, e.g. mathematics, including thinking skills, creativity, information and communications technology.
Research that was policy, programme and issue-focused has stimulated discussion and action, locally, nationally and internationally, for instance in Europe, Central and South-east Asia and Australia.