Every year, the NIHR promotes International Clinical Trials Day on 20 May. This is a special day to celebrate clinical research all over the world, and highlight the important impact research has had on medicine to date. For the NIHR, International Clinical Trials Day is an opportunity to showcase the diversity of health and social care research, how you can get involved and the benefits it brings to patients and the public.
2017 is a particularly exciting year, because the NIHR are launching a new national campaign: I Am Research.
I Am Research follows in the footsteps of OK to Ask, which has helped to raise the profile of clinical research in the NHS over the last 4 years.
The NIHR have asked their award holders to support the campaign in the following ways, which you can also do too:
- Attend and promote I Am Research events happening near you
- If you are on twitter, sign up to support the I am Research thunderclap. Everyone that signs up agrees to have the same message sent automatically through their Twitter/Facebook account, on the same day, at the same time. That's 12pm on Saturday 20 May. It takes no more than 30 seconds to do and has already been supported by over 250 people and organisations including the Royal College of Physicians, Association of Medical Research Charities and multiple NHS Trusts. Remember to share your participation on your timeline when Thunderclap gives you the opportunity so your friends and colleagues can get involved too. The message is: “Get involved in health + social care research! 500K people a year do - here's 10 compelling reasons why #IAmResearch" with a link to: www.nihr.ac.uk/10-compelling-reasons.htm
- You can also join the ‘Why research is important to patients’ tweetchat #whywedoresearch on 17 May at 8-9pm
- If you have a social media profile, add an 'I Am Research' twibbon to your profile picture
- Read the I Am Research blogs on the NIHR blog page (one of our lay Panel members David Symes has written one and there will be a blog by NIHR CDF Barney Dunn posted next week)
With your support, we can ensure that more people than ever before hear about the benefits of clinical research. To find out more about the campaign visit www.iamresearch.co.uk.