Category / BU research

HRA announcement – Amendment Tool now live

Please see below for a recent update from the Health Research Authority with regard to a new amendment tool and the online submission of amendments.

If you have any queries please email Suzy Wignall in Research Development & Support.


Online submission of amendments and a new amendment tool is now live across the UK, as of today Tuesday 2 June 2020.

These new processes for handling amendments are part of our ongoing Research Systems programme to improve services for applicants.

  • The amendment tool is designed to simplify the amendment process for applicants and
  • The ability to submit amendments online means that applicants can track the submission history of amendments.

From 2 June, all applicants making an amendment to project-based research will need to complete the amendment tool and submit their amendment online. The tool replaces the Notification of Substantial Amendment (NoSA) and Non-Substantial Amendment forms. Amendments to Research Tissue Banks and Research Databases will also be submitted online from this date.

To help with these changes, we have now published:

For queries on how to complete the tool, questions on the results from the tool, once complete or how to submit your amendment online, please contact amendments@hra.nhs.uk

Amendment Tool

The new amendment tool should be used for all project-based research including amendments being made under the COVID-19 fast-track process, from 2 June. (Research Tissue Banks and Research Databases will continue to use the IRAS generated substantial amendment forms.)

The tool categorises the amendment and provides tailored guidance on how to submit. It will identify any review bodies the amendment needs to be sent to, based on the changes that are being made to the study. It also provides detailed information about the amendment to participating sites.

The Notice of Substantial Amendment/annex 2 form can be generated by completing the tool. This version of the form can then be submitted to the REC and the MHRA (as required) when making a substantial amendment to a trial.

The amendment tool is based in Excel, but in the longer term we plan to fully integrate the tool functionality into IRAS.

The introduction of the amendment tool may require changes to Sponsor’s quality system (e.g. SOPs, guidance documents and templates etc.). Organisations should do this in accordance with the new process in good time. Given the additional demands placed across the healthcare research systems at this time, the MHRA has confirmed that it will adopt a pragmatic approach during inspection.

Submitting amendments online

Once you have completed the amendment tool, you should follow the submission guidance provided in the submission guidance tab of the tool. If the amendment needs to be submitted, then the amendment tool, together with all the supporting documents, should be uploaded into a new part of IRAS and submitted using the online system.

For amendments to Research Tissue Banks and Research Databases the IRAS substantial amendment form should be submitted online in place of the amendment tool.

Applicants will need to set up a new login and password for the new part of IRAS. We are sharing a login process with NIHR systems for the new parts of IRAS that provide online booking, the Combined Ways of Working (CWoW) pilot, and this new amendment system. If you already have a login for any NIHR system or one of these new parts of IRAS you can use the same details. If you do not already have a login for those systems, you will need to set up a new login and password as guided by the system.

Once you have logged in, applications will need to input the IRAS ID for the study as well as some other information regarding the study and amendment, some of which will need to be copied directly from the tool itself. Applicants can upload documents including a pdf of the tool itself. The system will issue an email to confirm the amendment has been submitted.

PGR Virtual Poster Showcase | Hina Tariq

Next up in the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase:

Hina Tariq, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences with this poster entitled:

‘Validation of contracture assessment screening tool.’

Click the poster below to enlarge.

Contractures are a debilitating consequence of prolonged immobility potentially leading to physical impairments, limited functional mobility, decreased independence with everyday activities, and reduced social participation. There is no standard assessment tool available to assess the risk of contracture development or progression. The Contracture Assessment Screening Tool (CAST) was developed by Dorset Health Care University NHS Foundation Trust to address this gap. This project aims to establish the 1) CAST validity and 2) CAST effectiveness in reducing contracture development and progression. Timely identification of those at risk of contracture development or progression may help facilitate contracture prevention and the associated negative sequelae.  To evaluate CAST, a mixed methods approach is being utilised including realist review and evaluation.  Merging different methodologies and a realist approach will provide a unique perspective on CAST validation and use. This project is ongoing and the poster will present the overall methodology and significance of the project.


If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Government Survey of UK Researchers working under Covid-19

All researchers are invited to respond to this government survey.

BEIS has commissioned Vitae, supported by UKRI and Universities UK, to gather evidence to understand the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the activities of researchers and research groups. This evidence will inform BEIS’s consideration and design of potential interventions to help protect researchers, research institutions and facilities, and in the longer term reinforce the research base and sustain research and innovation activity in the UK.  All researchers employed in UK universities, research institutes, charities and companies are invited to respond to the survey. They are particularly interested to hear from principal investigators and leaders of research groups.

The survey will be open until Tuesday 9 June.

Please to respond to help inform the Government’s thinking.

UKRO Webinar – COVID-19 Impact on EU Projects: Update

Tuesday 9th June 10:30 – 11:30

UKRO is pleased to announce the latest in its series of webinars on the topic of COVID-19 impact update. The webinar is intended to provide an update of the current situation regarding COVID-19 and will cover (in brief) areas such as:

  • Known call updates and changes to call deadlines;
  • Project implementation issues;
  • COVID 19 measures within the latest EU budget proposal;
  • Opportunity for Q&A.

The webinar is intended for researchers and support staff currently engaged in projects, or applying to forthcoming calls, to make them aware of the latest information on COVID 19 in respect to proposal development and project delivery.

The webinar will be delivered using the ‘Zoom’ online conference facility. No prior purchasing of software is necessary but registration via the event page is mandatory.

If you have any queries, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research Professional – all you need to know

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to Research Professional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using Research Professional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of Research Professional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on Research Professional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with Research Professional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

14th July 2020

8th September 2020

10th November 2020

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

BU PhD student presenting at European Sigma Nursing Conference

Bournemouth University Ph.D. student Peter Wolfensberger presented today at the 5th Sigma European Conference in Coimbra, Portugal.  This is probably the first major global online conference in nursing!  The title of Peter’s presentation was Creating Meaning – People Living with Mental Illness in Switzerland. In true COVID-19 style he gave his presentation life online.  Consequently, this workshop session was well attended by nurses from across Europe, and it had the added benefit that all his Ph.D. supervisors could attend online too.  The World Health Organisations (WHO) has designated the year 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife”, in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale.  This  Sigma European  Conference focused very much on importance of nurses and nursing in health care provision.

Peter has successfully defended his thesis and is currently writing up a few minor corrections.  He has been supervised by Dr. Sarah Thomas, Prof. Sabine Hahn and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

PGR Virtual Poster Showcase | Juliette Hecquet

Taking us into the sixth week of the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase:

Juliette Hecquet, PhD student in the Faculty of Management with this poster entitled:

Exploring yoga as a flow experience: A phenomenological study of contemporary communities.’

Click the poster below to enlarge.

The definition of yoga remains fluid and controversial, creating an oxymoron between the philosophical roots of yoga and physical practice. The majority of published academic research is in medicalised fields; however researchers agree yoga has vast positive outcomes with the potential to be valuable in society.  A lack of clarity exists on what the yoga experience now is, with sparse evidence of, non-medical, qualitative research.  The flow experience and the practice of yoga continue to draws parallel’s from a philosophical standpoint.   Yoga can be regarded as one of the oldest and most systematic methods of producing flow experience but has yet to be researched as one. This interpretative phenomenological research aims to explore the lived yoga experience and the potential flow experience, across contemporary yoga communities.  Videos (vlogs) and in-depth semi-structured interviews will explore the research questions; how yoga participants explain their lived yoga experience and the potential flow experience.


If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Publication success BU postgraduate researchers

Congratulations to Bournemouth University researchers Adam Spacey, Orlanda Harvey and Chloe Casey on the acceptance of their research paper ‘Postgraduate researchers’ experiences of accessing participants via gatekeepers: ‘Wading through treacle!’’ [1]  The study is partly based on their experiences as postgraduate researchers interacting with gatekeepers which they used to design an online questionnaire for postgraduate researchers. The results of the survey highlighted that postgraduate researchers face a range of challenges when using gatekeepers to access participants for studies, and that there is a negative emotional impact arising when challenges are faced. Thematic analysis revealed six themes  (1) Access to participants; (2) Relationships; (3) Perceptions of research; (4) Context for gatekeepers; (5) Emotional impact; and (6) Mechanisms to address challenges.  This paper is forthcoming in the Journal of Further and Higher Education (published by Taylor & Francis).

 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

Reference:

  1. Spacey, A., Harvey, O., Casey, C. (2020) Postgraduate researchers’ experiences of accessing participants via gatekeepers: ‘Wading through treacle!’, Journal of Further and Higher Education (accepted)

How the C-19 lockdown has affected the work-life balance of BU academics (Part 5): lessons learned

As the week ends, we would like to close this series of blogs by sharing with you some of the lessons we believe can be learned from the experiences of 70 BU colleagues who completed our survey. Many thanks to all who have already contributed to this research. The results we have presented so far are only part of the data. The survey will remain open until the end of May, when we will then analyse all responses to improve our understanding of the impact of the C-19 lockdown on academics across the UK and beyond. If you have not yet contributed to this survey, you are kindly invited to do so here: tiny.cc/acad19, and please do share with your networks. This is a cross-faculty (FHSS and FST) collaboration conducted by an interdisciplinary team with expertise in social sciences (Prof Sara Ashencaen Crabtree), public health (Prof Ann Hemingway) and physical geography (Dr Luciana Esteves).

Lesson learned 1. The complementarity of the quantitative and qualitative data.
The quantitative data helped identifying the factors that are affecting the largest number of respondents and where there are contrasting views or experiences between groups of respondents. The qualitative data provided insights into how the factors have affected the respondents and why, particularly on specific personal circumstances and other aspects that were not included in the closed-ended questions. This research would be deficient without one or the other.

Lesson learned 2. Working from home is bringing compounded benefits to the majority and is something that is wished to remain as an option in the longer term.
You can find some insights about the benefits identified by respondents at the end of blog Part 2. Academics are not alone in wishing for flexibility to work remotely to continue after lockdown and some employers have already surveyed their employees preferences as they start planning for reshaping their office spaces.

Lesson learned 3. Some negative aspects of working from home will subside when lockdown restrictions are reduced but others will persist.
These are some examples:

  • Less pressure from balancing family and work needs when schools re-open; home-care support can resume; when social distancing measures allow some more interaction with family and friends (even if just a small number)
  • Inadequate workspace at home may persist due to space and/or financial difficulties in making adjustments to transform home shared spaces into quiet workspaces.

Lesson learned 4. Online teaching is seeing as positive by some and negative by others (see blog Part 2).
Part of the negative effect was due to the increased workload resulting from the fast pace in which adjustments needed to be made, sometimes under duress of lack of experience/training (including how to use software/tools) and/or inadequate equipment. Considerations of how to provide training and sharing of good practices are likely to be beneficial to some staff.

Lesson learned 5. The increased inequities that are arising from the rapid changes in the academic environment.
Conditions are wide ranging when the workspace is each one’s home. Some are perfectly suited or can be well adjusted, others were never meant to be. Identifying and supporting the staff who need to work from an office outside their home becomes crucial and urgent. Other long-standing inequities have been aggravated during lockdown (see blog Part 4), including but not limited to gender bias, with strong consequences to research.

Lesson learned 6. A fresh management approach is needed to address these emerging inequities.
Providing the specific support that is needed by staff who have been the most negatively affected should be prioritised to reduce inequities. The resulting short and long-term impacts of lockdown on staff productivity, health and wellbeing need to be taken into consideration in appraisals and career progression decisions.

Lesson learned 7. Most are greatly concerned about workloads and work-life balance when lockdown ends (see blog Part 1).
In addition to addressing emerging inequities, there is considerable concern and opposition to a possible ‘return to normal work’, which has been expressed by respondents (and the academic community at large) as working arrangements and demands affecting productivity and the health and wellbeing of staff.

Lesson learned 8. There is a need to improve communication and guidance from managers to staff dealing with students’ requests and concerns, such as programme leaders.
Managing students’ expectations is a major concern for a large proportion of respondents, more so for specific cohorts or programmes.

Lesson learned 9. Many staff are missing the interaction and support from colleagues.
Identifying ways to promote spontaneous interactions 1-2-1 or in small groups is likely to benefit staff.

Lesson learned 10. Staff wish that their experiences inform decisions and help shaping the ‘new normal’ working environment.
A working group with university management, UCU and senior leadership staff could be formed to co-create and shape the ‘new normal’ and the strategies that can be implemented to reduce emerging and long-standing inequalities.

Qualitative comments: How the C-19 lockdown has affected the work-life balance of BU academics (Part 4)

Over the last two weeks we (Dr Luciana Esteves, Professor Ann Hemingway and I) have been giving the BU community a blog update of the findings from our opportunistic, cross-faculty survey focusing on the work-life balance of academics within and beyond BU. The previous blogs, Part 2 and Part 3 , have provided data detailing participant responses on the difficulties, or otherwise, of managing a work-life balance during the current pandemic lockdown.

Today’s update puts some additional qualitative flesh on the bones of statistical data. Thematic analysis of the qualitative comments provided some very important insights into the impact of lockdown restrictions; and here we found a broad consensus on certain issues, although these were strongly split between negative and positive viewpoints. It should be noted again that the gender balance of respondents was weighted heavily towards women academics over male respondents; and given these demographics a body of findings carried clear gendered overtones in the survey comments, in terms of the experienced ramifications of lockdown.

While some responses applied to both sexes any gender differences in survey responses appear to be strongly foregrounded by normative, but often overlooked, social constructions pertaining to gendered roles, which are being reinforced, or perhaps more likely, glaringly highlighted, by the material conditions under which lockdown is being enacted. The impact on the publication output of female academics during this period, compared to that of male colleagues, has already been highlighted in the Guardian newspaper, in addition to a recent article in the Times Higher Education regarding the marginalisation and muting of women STEM experts working on Covid-19, in comparison with a dominant male presence occupying the media stage, whether experts on the virus or otherwise.

Returning to the findings of the BU survey, in terms of positive aspects caused by lockdown academia, there were many responses referring to the benefits of working at home as a rule, rather than as a tolerated exception. One of the strongest points concerned the end of travel to the office. This was a significant plus for those commuting from some distance, while for others just the daily struggle of negotiating traffic, the ever-present anxiety of finding a vacant parking space (a particular concern on the Lansdowne campus), together with the exhausting morning rush of organising families prior to getting into work, was felt to be a real boon. Hours were magically freed up for many people and while the financial savings were appreciated, it was certainly not less than the warm feeling of being able to do something really positive in the fight against the climate crisis.

This new, novel freedom to work from home was managed in different ways and for several people could be fitted into a personally tailored and structured day; one with the added benefits of being not only better paced, but healthier as well in terms of improved nutrition, regular exercise, protection from Covid-19 exposure, reduced stress and physical wear-and-tear, as noted in these responses:

‘Freedom to engage with workload at times to suit me and my household. Online meetings were at first a positive as it highlighted to all that in future this could be a way forward instead of travelling up and down the M27 to attend meetings at our campus in xxx. Thus reducing our travelling costs, petrol consumption, stress free and reducing the carbon footprint on the environment.’

‘During lockdown I now do yoga and another form of exercise everyday- and my stress levels are reduced. I save money from the costs of the commute to work and exorbitant childcare costs.’

However, these positive accounts were balanced by those referring to high levels of stress and physical exhaustion, which for many, had been greatly exacerbated by lockdown. This was where gendered distinctions came strongly to the fore. Women academics were now suddenly out of the office outfit and back into the pinafore, overloaded by the typical gendered ‘double-shift’ of balancing waged work commitments and unpaid domestic labour and childcare – a clear case of ‘having none of it’ rather than the clichéd ‘having it all’, as this participant conveys:

‘Constantly feeling I am not doing enough work – knowing I just don’t have time to research. Feeling split between feeling I should be paying my young daughter attention but keep having to look at emails and sort admin etc. Dreading marking coming in as I will spend less time with my daughter while her dad works as a [key worker]. Feels like I am doing two jobs badly: bad mother, bad academic.’

In addition, the lockdown has brought considerable disruption to some professional programmes, where staff are working intensely long hours to mitigate the effects on students, with some struggling with inadequate home office equipment and incompatible or malfunctioning software.

‘Am working extremely long days (average of 12 to 16 hours) as both a mother and a worker. Support for student xxx [professional programme] and cover for colleagues while off sick has increased and requires a lot of personal emotional resources. Am having to deal with a lot of emotions masked as initial anger and frustration and to de-escalate this to support students. Little or no time for own research despite deadlines.’

Even in purely academic programmes the unprecedented strangeness of lockdown has greatly increased student anxiety, resulting in a flood of emails for advice and information, which needs continuous, laborious repetition and new channelling stratgies.

To sum up, this blog provides a limited snapshot of the richness of the qualitative data generated by the survey. While analysis and dissemination continues, a vital new question arises of what important lessons can be developed and applied arising from this very interesting data. While the general public are increasingly aware of the precarity that Covid-19 has unleashed globally, many would argue that these are merely an exacerbation of existing problems that have been around for a long time infecting societies and institutions therein, like academia. In some ways there has never been a better opportunity than now to address them comprehensively and courageously. The question now is how?

Please consider being a participant: the current survey is still open and we hope to gather more responses and which may reflect a greater gender balance from which to draw findings. If you are interested in participating please go to https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/impact-of-lockdown-on-academics. We would be pleased if you would also share the survey with your wider networks as is open to all academics wherever there are. Please note, if you want us to be able to identify that you are BU staff, you will need to mention BU in one of the open questions.

How the C-19 lockdown has affected the work-life balance of BU academics (Part 3)

In our previous blogs, we showed that work-life balance during lockdown got worse for 59% and improved for 37% of the 70 BU academics who responded to our survey (blog Part 1). We also showed how some aspects of life in lockdown have affected groups of people differently. For example, a considerably higher proportion of respondents under 40 years of age reported negative effect from switching to online teaching (75%), change in the number of emails (58%) and changes in the number of meetings (50%) in relation to other age groups (blog Part 2). This blog Part 3 focuses on how the main concerns of academics shifted through time and the support they have found most helpful.

If you have not yet contributed to this survey, you are kindly invited to do so here: https://bournemouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/impact-of-lockdown-on-academics, and please do share with your networks. If you want us to be able to identify that you are BU staff, you will need to provide this information in one of the open questions.

We asked respondents to identify the three main concerns they had at the start of the outbreak, at the start of the lockdown and at present from a list of 15 options. While respondents’ main concerns have changed through time, the health of a family member or close friend have always remained within the top three (Figure 1). Own health and coping with changes at work were within the top three main concerns at the start of both the outbreak and lockdown but subsided in priority afterwards. As lockdown progressed, main concerns shifted to broader issues such as the duration and/or gravity of the pandemic and longer-term impacts in the country or the world in general. It is important to note that, from the start of the outbreak to the time they responded to the survey (end of April/early May), work-life balance and the consequences to own work in the longer-term became a major concern to a considerably larger proportion of respondents.

Figure 1. Respondents’ main concerns at the start of the outbreak, at the start of the lockdown and at present.

In open comments, respondents identified other aspects that are of major concern, which can be grouped as worries about own or others health, managing circumstances at home or at work (Table 1).

Table 1. Other major concerns expressed by respondents

Figure 2 highlights the types of support that were considered to be helpful and the ones that need to be improved to help a larger number of staff (e.g. provision of IT equipment, which BU is currently addressing and support from line managers). Unsurprisingly, having good internet connection at home was considered very helpful by 65% of respondents and the support from family and colleagues was considered extremely valuable at these critical times .

Figure 2. Respondents indication of how helpful were these particular types of support available to them.

Responses to open questions provided insights on the relevance of support received and identified other means of support not listed in Figure 2. These other means of support are summarised in Table 2.

The support offered by learning technologists and other colleagues to enable the quick turnaround to online teaching was considered invaluable. In terms of support provided by the university, the extra days of leave were mentioned most often. Respondents indicate that they appreciate the ‘gesture of goodwill’ but are concerned that they might not be able to take these days in the near future due to work pressures. It was also mentioned that these extra days do not cover for the costs of working from home, e.g. internet charges.

Table 2. Examples of other types of support and coping strategies respondents found useful during lockdown.

Respondents identified four aspects in which support from the university could be more effective:

  • Availability of equipment and workspace adequate for job – this included computer/laptop, desk/chair, internet and quiet space at home.
  • Better communication and/or more timely guidance from the university to help staff dealing with student queries – issues of concern included the cascading of communication, with staff sometimes learning information from students and poor/insufficient information and support to staff, particularly affecting programme leaders, the first port of call to student cohorts.
  • Need for management to plan ahead more efficiently
  • Support and guidance to staff undertaking PhDs

 

Who are the respondents?

Exposure to Covid-19

  • 7% of respondents (5 out of 68) had severe symptoms of Covid-19 or tested positive or live with someone who did. All are female respondents in their 20s, 30s and 50s. Two of these households had someone at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
  • 22% of respondents (15 out of 68) had close family members, friends or colleagues who had severe symptoms of Covid-19 or tested positive. All are female respondents in their 30s, 40s and 50s (the majority, 9 respondents).
  • 41% of respondents (28 out of 68) live in a household where there is at least one person at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19.

BU academics contribute to initial findings from Covid-19 expert database

In March, POST launched the Covid-19 outbreak expert database, inviting anyone who wanted to support Parliament in its work, and had expertise in COVID-19 and/or its impacts to sign up. In April, more than 1,100 experts on this database responded to a survey put out by POST, asking them to share their immediate, short, medium and long term concerns relating to COVID-19 and its impacts. Having analysed the responses, and determined there to be 15 broad areas of concern, POST is now publishing syntheses in these 15 areas.

 

The 15 areas of concern are listed here, along with the methodology for both conducting the survey and synthesising the insights. The 15 syntheses are being published on POST’s Horizon Scanning pages.

Those respondents who said they would be happy to be publicly acknowledged are listed in full here and the list includes the following BU academics:

  • Professor Katherine Appleton – Psychology
  • Dr Emily Arden-Close – Psychology
  • Professor Christopher Hartwell – Financial Systems Resilience
  • Professor Ann Hemingway – Public Health and Wellbeing
  • Dr Sarah Hodge – Psychology
  • Dr John Oliver – Media Management
  • Dr Karen Thompson – Leadership Strategy and Organisations
  • Dr John McAlaney – Psychology
  • Professor Lee Miles – Crisis and Disaster Management
  • Dr Andy Pulman – Digital Health and User Experience
  • Professor Barry Richards – Political Psychology

You can still sign up to the expert database here.

 

NIHR Learn – Resources to support you through the Covid-19 pandemic

The NIHR Learn platform now contains a number of resources to offer guidance and support to help researchers during the pandemic.

There are resources in the following areas:

  • Understanding the science of Covid-19
  • Leading in uncertain times
  • Conveying Difficult Information to patients and relatives
  • Personal resilience
  • Wellbeing
  • Remote working
  • Online Webinars and Events

To access these you will need to create an account on the system* – if you run into any issues with creating an account  phone the helpdesk on 0207 333 5894 or email them.

Once you are on the system, click on ‘Bite-sized Learning’ from the options and then select ‘Resources to support you through the Covid-19 pandemic’.

*If you have used the system to access Good Clinical Practice training or dates you will already have an account.