KEELE PARTNERSHIP AWARDED GRANT TO SUPPORT HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE PROFESSIONALS TO DEVELOP RESEARCH PROJECTS

Keele, represented by Primary Care Sciences, has worked with health researchers from Birmingham and Warwick universities to gain an award from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) – the R & D arm of the Department of Health and the NHS - to provide a research design service for health and social care workers in the West Midlands.

The award is worth £5million in total over five years to the partnership, with a central facility in Birmingham, of which £1,210,000 over five years will come to the Keele Hub of the service.

The aim is to support dedicated time for researchers from a range of disciplines (statistics, health economics, social science, for example) so they can provide advice, support and input to NHS and social care professionals who have a research background and who have good questions about how to improve care of their patients or clients. The target is to help such individuals and their teams to develop research proposals which are strong enough to be submitted to one of a range of NIHR programmes.

Although Primary Care Sciences put together the successful bid, the service is designed for all sectors of the NHS and builds on the reputation Keele has for close working between the NHS and academic units in the University. Led by Roger Beech, Reader in Health Services Research, the Keele Hub of the service has already appointed a senior statistician (Dr John Belcher), an experienced social scientist (Dianne Roberts), and an administrator (Debbie Cooke), who spend half-time with the service.

In addition, the Keele Hub has been funded to support a region-wide service in the West Midlands to promote the active engagement of the public and patients in developing and managing health and social care research. This initiative is led by Professor Pauline Ong and Dr Clare Jinks, Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences, who have developed a successful patient and public "Research Users Group" in Primary Care. They have just appointed a research fellow (Pam Carter) to support the new initiative.

ASTROPHYSICS GROUP'S NEW PLANET ATTRACTS WORLDWIDE PUBLICITY

The Keele-led discovery of the new planet WASP-17, the first planet found to be circling its star the wrong way, in a "retrograde" orbit that might be the result of a previous near collision with another planet, was picked up by more than 65 news outlets and websites worldwide, including the BBC News website, Scientific American and National Geographic, and led to numerous print articles and to interviews with Professor Coel Hellier, Astrophysics/ Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics, including BBC Radio Wales, Radio Five, BBC Radio Stoke and others as far away as Colombian National Public Radio. 

WASP-17 is the 17th planet found by the WASP consortium (Wide Area Search for Planets) and the 9th found with Keele's WASP-South camera array.

Picture - An artist's impression of the planet WASP-17 in a close encounter with a looming companion planet, both orbiting a star 1000 light years away in the constellation Scorpius. Lawrence Livermore, National Laboratory.

GRANT TO IDENTIFY EMPLOYMENT PATTERNS OF MIGRANT WORKERS

Dr Steve French, Research Institute for Public Policy and Management, has received £9,000 from the Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Lifelong Learning Network for a project titled "Eastern Europeans - Equivalencies, APL and Engagement".

The project, run in conjunction with Burton College, involves a labour market analysis of East Staffordshire and South Derbyshire to identify the employment patterns of East European migrant workers and fieldwork to ascertain the demand for additional vocational training and education provision among migrant workers and employers of migrant workers.

NATIONAL AWARD TO ATTRACT YOUNG GRADUATES INTO HEALTH RESEARCH

Dr Elaine Thomas and Professor Danielle van der Windt, of the Arthritis Research Campaign National Primary Care Centre, based in Primary Care Sciences, have been awarded a grant of £135,422 in national competition by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) to support the training of young graduates linked to one of the funded programmes of research in the centre.

Dr Thomas and Professor van der Windt, Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences, linked up for this proposal with Leicester University's renowned Masters course in Medical Statistics. The idea is that the grant supports a competitive bursary for a student place on the Leicester Masters, followed by two years at Keele doing original work on the NIHR Osteoarthritis programme, based in the Primary Care Centre. This is designed to increase the specialist health research capacity at Keele, enhance the output from funded programmes of research and build longer-term collaborations with units such as Leicester.

An additional and attractive feature of this award is that the trainee will be offered specific opportunities to supervise an undergraduate project during their attachment and to develop a proposal for an external PhD fellowship to follow the training award. In this way, the partnership between Keele, Leicester and the NIHR aims to develop long-term careers in health research among the best of young graduates.

FORTY YEARS SERVICE

Sue Broughton, a member of staff in the School of Computing and Mathematics, last week celebrated 40 years of service at the University. She began work at Keele in August 1969, working first as a secretary in the Keele Workshop and later joining the Department of Mathematics in 1982. She has been in the department ever since, more recently working in the School Office after the formation of the School.

Members of the School threw a surprise celebration tea for Sue last Friday with many people present, including colleagues, ex-colleagues, friends and her husband, Ed.  Sue was presented with flowers and a special celebration cake in recognition of her achievement.