University of Brighton launches research scholarships for region’s healthcare workers

This initiative, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is designed to help professionals like nurses, midwives, pharmacists, healthcare scientists, social workers, and public health professionals incorporate research into their daily work.

By equipping health workers with skills to conduct independent investigations in their everyday professional practice, the program aims to encourage innovative thinking and problem-solving in healthcare settings, ultimately leading to better patient care.

Through its INSIGHT: Inspiring Students into Research scheme, the NIHR will fund a total of 80 Master of Research (MRes) degrees over the next three years across twelve regions including the south-east via the University of Brighton.

These funded courses are targeted at early career professionals or new graduates whose professional training has not been research-based. This may include nurses, midwives, pharmacists, healthcare scientists, social workers, allied health and public health professionals.

Professor Rusi Jaspal, Pro Vice-Chancellor in charge of Research and Knowledge and Exchange at the University of Brighton said: “The NIHR MRes studentships will enable the University of Brighton to train healthcare professionals to become active researchers. With the skills they develop on the MRes, they will be encouraged to ask challenging questions, seek innovative solutions to real-world problems, and apply these solutions to healthcare practice. This is absolutely consistent with the university’s commitment to making a difference through research and knowledge exchange.”

With a long-standing commitment to providing excellent teaching, conducting interdisciplinary research, and establishing collaborative partnerships, the University of Brighton will be deploying this programme across its four Centres of Research Excellence (COREs) that focus on health and wellbeing.

Dr Angela Glynn, Dean of the School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences said: “Thanks to the NIHR, this programme builds on the experience of our existing MRes provision in the School of Sport and Health Sciences to enable students to work with a combination of world-leading research and professional knowledge and experience from a range of health settings in the UK. The outcomes of the research undertaken by the health professionals on this course now and in the future will contribute to significant improvements in the quality of patient care.”

The funded MRes degrees under the INSIGHT programme will be delivered in partnership with University of Chichester and University of Kent.

For more information please email Dr Nina Stewart n.stewart1@brighton.ac.uk.