Podcasters

Imelda Bates is the Head of the Centre for Capacity Research (CCR) at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and is a practising clinician. CCR is a global leader in research on research capacity and systems and in evidence-informed practice with a focus on developing countries. CCR always work in partnership with individuals and institutions and aim to enhance research skills, to improve the institutional systems that support research, and to promote institutional cultures that enable researchers to be creative and confident, and to thrive.

Imelda leads a multi-disciplinary team in CCR who:
Conduct high quality, implementation-focused capacity strengthening research
Foster a global community of capacity strengthening scientists with equitable low- and middle-income country participation
Share learning and advocate for evidence-informed research capacity strengthening practice

With her colleagues, Imelda has been generating high quality evidence to improve research capacity strengthening programmes for over 10 years. She has many peer-reviewed publications and research grants and is widely regarded as international expert in ‘research on research systems’. CCR are regular contributors to the UKCDR Research Capacity Strengthening Group (a coalition of UK research funders). She has provided advice and guidance for funders’ programmes including the GCRF ‘Growing Research Capability’ programme and WHO-TDR’s research capacity strengthening team. CCR’s outputs have influenced concepts and practice on for example, the design and evaluation of research capacity strengthening programmes, the management of research consortia and the process for reviewing the ‘capacity’ components of grant applications. Imelda has been a key invited contributor to research capacity strengthening global panels including at the Global Development Conference (2019) and the World Health Summit (2019).

Helen Bingham is Head of Knowledge and Library Services at Health Education England (HEE) and leads the resource discovery workstream of HEE’s Knowledge for Healthcare strategy. A qualified knowledge specialist, she has worked for the NHS for over 30 years in a wide range of library and technology enhanced learning roles.

Chris Carrigan is a specialist in health data and information, but with a particular focus on patient involvement and patient power. He is co- Chair of the Bowel Cancer Intelligence UK Patient Public Group and Expert Data Adviser to the use MY data movement. Chris has significant experience in influencing national policy in medical informatics and research and has a respected national profile in leading patient and public engagement exercises. In 2014 he was named as one of the Health Service Journal’s Top 50 Innovators in the NHS for his innovative and collaborative approach to patient empowerment, and featured on BBC Radio 4’s Networking Nation series. Until August 2018 Chris was the inaugural Chair of an advisory group for NHS Digital, IGARD – the Independent Group Advising on the Release of Data. awaiting biography)

Catriona Firth is Associate Director of Research Environment at Research England (UKRI). She previously worked in the REF 2021 team as Head of REF Policy. Prior to joining Research England, she worked in Research and Impact Services at the University of Warwick, first as Impact Officer for the Arts Faculty and, subsequently, as Research Strategy and Development Manager for Social Sciences.

Trish Greenhalgh is Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences and Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. She studied Medical, Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge and Clinical Medicine at Oxford before training first as a diabetologist and later as an academic general practitioner. She has a doctorate in diabetes care and an MBA in Higher Education Management. She leads a programme of research at the interface between the social sciences and medicine, working across primary and secondary care.

Her work seeks to celebrate and retain the traditional and the humanistic aspects of medicine and healthcare while also embracing the unparalleled opportunities of contemporary science and technology to improve health outcomes and relieve suffering. Three particular interests are the health needs and illness narratives of minority and disadvantaged groups; the introduction of technology-based innovations in healthcare; and the complex links (philosophical and empirical) between research, policy and practice. She has brought this interdisciplinary perspective to bear on the research response to the Covid-19 pandemic, looking at diverse themes including clinical assessment of the deteriorating patient by phone and video, the science and anthropology of face coverings, and policy decision-making in conditions of uncertainty.

Trish is the author of over 400 peer-reviewed publications and 16 textbooks. She was awarded the OBE for Services to Medicine by Her Majesty the Queen in 2001 and made a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2014. She is also a Fellow of the UK Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners, Faculty of Clinical Informatics and Faculty of Public Health.

Dr Danny Kingsley is an expert in developing strategy and policy in the higher education and research sector with extensive international experience, most recently in Europe and the UK. Her work involves aspects of advocacy, professional development, research and communication through developing relationships with all levels of the scholarly communication landscape, from the individual researcher, to editors and publishers of journals and monographs, funding bodies, research institutions and government. Her research centres on scholarly communication with interests in the academic reward structure, scholarly infrastructure and open access advocacy. She sits on multiple committees and has written extensively and presented all over the world in this area.

Until May 2019 Danny worked as the Deputy Director of Cambridge University Libraries (Scholarly Communication & Research Services). The announcement of Cambridge’s Position Statement on Open Research in February 2019 was the culmination of four years’ work in this area. Danny was also instrumental in the formation of the Scholarly Communication Competencies Coalition (SC3) looking at meeting the emerging skill need of this area. Danny started at Cambridge in January 2015 and oversaw all aspects of scholarly communication at the University, including compliance with funder open access policies, research data management, intellectual property, copyright and other areas.

Before moving to the UK she established the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group. This followed on from working for four years as the Manager of Scholarly Communication at the Australian National University, a natural extension of her 2008 PhD into the range of ways different disciplines engage with open access. She has worked as a science communicator for 15 years, including two years with ABC Science Online as a journalist for News in Science.

Danny tweets enthusiastically [https://twitter.com/dannykay68]. Her full publication history with open links is available [https://www.force11.org/node/6222]

Saumu Lwembe is a public health specialist from a social science background. Her recent research study was on the impact of health system reforms in both high-income and low-middle income country settings. She’s currently a senior programme manager at National institute for health research.

Dr. Maëva May is currently Head of Policy at the British Heart Foundation, working at the intersection of research and health and care policy analysis. With nearly a decade of research policy experience both in the UK and the US, Maëva is passionate about translating research into policy to help support a vibrant research ecosystem and ensure policy recommendations are grounded in evidence. She has led efforts at the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in strategic planning and research priority-setting, as well as helped coordinate international efforts such as the International Cancer Research Partnership.

David J. Phipps, Ph.D., MBA (Assistant Vice President Research Strategy & Impact York University), is the administrative lead for all research programs and their impacts on local and global communities at York University (Toronto, Canada). He has received honours and awards from the Canadian Association of Research Administrators, Society for Research Administration International, Institute for Knowledge Mobilization, International Network of Research Management Societies and the EU based Knowledge Economy Network. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work in knowledge mobilization and was named the most influential knowledge mobilizer in Canada. He sits on knowledge mobilization committees around the world and is Network Director for Research Impact Canada.

Mark Taylor, according to his last consultant’s letter, has “relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis, a sacral nerve sheath tumour, hips tendinitis and labral tear, knee meniscal injury, shoulder adhesive capsulitis and now tentative degenerative arthritis”. He currently works part time but is a patient advocate for MS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823gl0-74-o) and other broader health issues (https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/09/13/mark-taylor-does-it-matter-that-letters-between-consultants-and-gps-are-not-addressed-to-patients/). He is currently back on Twitter for no apparent reason @RustOfMan

Katharine Wright is the Assistant Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent UK-based body that informs policy and public debate about the ethical questions raised by biological and medical research. She was responsible for the Council’s latest inquiry, Research in global health emergencies: ethical issues, which published its detailed report and recommendations in January 2020, and which has informed the COVID-19 research response. Her next project will be looking at the ethical implications of the emerging role of science and technology in helping people live well in old age. Previous work with the Council includes exploration of the ethical issues associated with the care and support of people with dementia, in research with children, and in ethical approaches to the donation of bodily materials for treatment or research. Before joining the Council in 2007, Katharine worked in health law, ethics and policy in the UK House of Commons, in the English Department of Health and in the National Health Service.

Sana Zakaria has ten years of experience in academia and the public sector, spanning life sciences, health policy, impact and evaluation and strategy development. She has been leading on strategic evidence and impact development at the British Heart Foundation for the last 5 years and has recently been appointed as the Head of Impact at NIHR CCF.