Contacts
Name: Helen Baxter
Title: Research Fellow in Knowledge Mobilisation and Implementation
Email: helen.baxter@bristol.ac.uk
Name: Sabi Redwood
Title: Professor of Social Science Applied to Health and Care
Email: sabi.redwood@bristol.ac.uk
The University’s mission is to increase the scale of high-quality, high-impact research to address local, national, and global challenges, and drive social, cultural, environmental and economic impact. We want to make the world a better place by facilitating and co-producing social and technical innovation, from new products and services to new enterprises and structures.
Alongside being embedded in the University’s mission and strategy, impact activity has been integrated into the academic progression framework to commend and support innovation across academic careers. Each school has an impact director who holds responsibility for impact at a school level, and faculty leadership have oversight of faculty impact activity. Impact opportunities and faculty direction are discussed at Faculty Research Committees to collaborate for strategic direction.
The University provides support for and activities in this space to generate an inclusive research impact ecosystem, and a pipeline of impact activity, by developing knowledge and skills for collaborating with agents of change. This activity feeds into the REF but remains separate from it to maintain systematic support for impact. The goal of this is to stimulate KM with a view for upskilling researchers, helping research to make a difference, and generating research impact.
The work that has been conducted within Bristol Medical School has provided an in-depth understanding of how to mobilise healthcare knowledge within the UK across a range of stakeholders and associated organisations. This includes partnership with Bristol Health Partners, which coordinates the Health Integration Teams (HITs). In the HITs experts in research, health and care services, and public health work alongside patients, carers, and service users to make sure that the best evidence is found and put into practice. By focusing on key areas and bringing together the right people from across our partnership, our HITs help people to live healthier lives, prevent illness earlier, and better integrate health and care across the local Bristol area. Other partnerships include the local Health Innovation Network, which bring together the NHS, industry, academic, third sector and local organisations to ensure innovations, improvements and best practice benefit more patients.