Three Schools' Early Career Event 2024

09.30 – 10.00am 

Registration, coffee, tea and networking  

10.00 – 10.15am

Welcome and Introduction from Three NIHR Research Schools

Rona Campbell, SPHR, Stephanie Taylor, SPCR Phillip Whitehead, SSCR

10.15- 11.00am

Keynote: Dr Beth Scott, Deputy Director, Research Programme Branch, DHSC 

11.00- 11.30am

Eugene Tang, NIHR Clinical Lecturer in General Practice, Newcastle University.

The value of collaboration - How to build a research team across a network, how to contact people and network across the NIHR Three Schools.

Eugene is a mixed methods clinical academic in primary care and current NIHR Clinical Lecturer. His research interests are in cognitive impairment/dementia particularly in stroke patients and how clinical pathways can be optimised to improve patient care. He has been PI/Co-I on a number of NIHR Three Schools grants from all three themes (Mental Health, Dementia and Prevention).

11.30- 1.00pm

Facilitated networking session

Join Jeni Smith, Founder and Networking Strategist at NetKno, for an engaging and interactive networking session designed to help you connect with colleagues across the Schools. Jeni will guide you through essential topics, including the principles of effective networking, the importance of network diversity, and how to foster innovation through meaningful conversations and connections. This session aims to enhance your confidence in networking while providing you with the tools to expand your professional network across all three Schools through interactive activities.

1.00- 2.00pm

Lunch and further networking  

2.00- 3.30pm

Parallel sessions (choose one)

• Public Involvement and Engagement - The Sixth Sense Halle Johnson & Angela King. This interactive session is designed to help attendees understand essential communication skills required to foster accessible and inclusive involvement & engagement in research. Throughactivities and games, attendees will learn strategies to communicate complex information in an accessible way and discover various approaches to support diverse groups to be involved in 2 research. Attendees will leave with practical examples, tools, and techniques to enhance inclusivity and engagement within their projects.

• Communicating your research to different audiences - Amy Johnson, Andi Sull, Laura Ritson & Laura Haviland. Join us for a hands-on workshop where you’ll work with your peers to create a communications plan. The session will inspire innovative thinking in creative communications tailored to diverse audiences and stakeholders. We’ll discuss using AI, press releases, infographics, videos and more. You’ll go away equipped with the skills to develop your own communications plan as well as tips and tools to help effectively communicate your research to different audiences.

3.30 - 3.45pm

Break  

3.45 - 4.30pm

Careers Panel Discussion 

• Chris Doble, Senior Programme Manager, NIHR Coordinating Centre. Chris Doble is a Senior Programme Manager at the NIHR who works within the NIHR Academy managing a number of career development funding opportunities as well as working with NIHR Infrastructure centres and Schools to support their career development opportunities. Chris would be happy to talk with attendees about career development and fellowship opportunities offered by NIHR at the event. Before joining NIHR, he completed my PhD at UCL and worked for the Royal Society managing early to mid-career fellowship programmes.
• Jayeeta Rajagopalan, Research Officer, London School of Economics. Jayeeta is a Research Officer at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Previously, she worked as an Early Career Researcher (ECR) on the Strengthening Responses to Dementia in Developing Countries (STRiDE) project in India between 2020-2022. She holds a BSc in Global Health and Social Medicine from King’s College London and an MSc in Global Health Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her key research interests include unpaid care, dementia care and support and care inequalities..
• Elizabeth McGill, Assistant Professor and SPHR Post-doc Launching Fellow, LSHTM. Elizabeth McGill is an Assistant Professor in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and an NIHR School for Public Health Research Post-Doctoral Launching Fellow. She is interested in the commercial determinants of health and bringing a systems lens to public health evaluation.
• Ruth Plackett, Zinc-NIHR Innovation Fellow and Three Schools Mental Health Postdoctoral Fellow, UCL. Ruth Plackett is a Senior Research Fellow at UCL’s Department of Primary Care and Population Health. Her research primarily focuses on social media and its impact on young people’s mental health. Ruth’s broader research interests include digital health and mixed methods research. She is currently undertaking an NIHR Three Schools’ Mental Health Programme Fellowship at UCL, where she explores the relationship between social media use and the mental health of young adults, and how primary care can better support young people’s mental health. Additionally, Ruth completed a Zinc & NIHR Innovation Fellowship this year, enhancing her understanding and connections with industry and digital health start-ups.
• Louis Goffe, NIHR Local Authority Academic Fellow, HDRC, Public Health Team, Gateshead Council. Louis Goffe is part of the first cohort of Advance Fellows as part of NIHR’s Local Authority Academic Fellowship Programme, as well as a Lead Researcher in Gateshead Council’s Health Determinants Research Collaboration. The current focus of his research is active travel and supporting under-represented groups to walk and cycle more. Louis is a researcher in applied public health with almost 17 years of experience who has taken an interdisciplinary approach to understand the mechanisms that create healthier and more equitable environments, applying expertise and knowledge from the natural, health, and computer sciences.

4.30pm

Close