Research

Research at the School of Health Sciences

World-leading healthcare research that impacts policy, service delivery and practice

Core research areas

Research in the School is organised into four core research areas which aim to nurture interdisciplinary research in partnership with external bodies. Our research is world-leading and underpins policy, practice and education.

Research strategy

The School of Health Sciences has a robust research strategy designed to support:

The School's strategy is in line with the overall University Research Strategy which includes targets for increasing the proportion of research active staff and improving performance in national and international league tables.

The full School Research Strategy document is available for download.

RAE 2008 and power rankings

The School achieved an excellent result in the RAE 2008 with its submission to the Nursing and Midwifery Unit of Assessment (UoA 11) being ranked as one of the highest in the UK and the top unit in London.

The research 'power' rankings produced by the journal Research Fortnight take account of both the quality of research output and the number of staff submitted. This placed City 2nd out of 36 nursing and midwifery units. A recently commissioned review by Thomson Reuters placed the School in the top 2% of equivalent Schools and Faculties in the UK.

Research income

Since RAE 2008 the School's research profile has continued to grow and strengthen. One example is the increase in research income from £1.6million in 2007/8 to £4.3million in 2010/11. Success rates in research grant applications have increased from 31% of applications being funded in 2007/8 to a 45% success rate in 2010/11.The School enjoys collaborative research relationships with many national and international academic centres, including Universities of Melbourne, Singapore, Brunei, UCSF.

Proportion of staff with, or working towards, a PhD

The proportion of academic staff contributing to Adult Nursing with a PhD has increased to 30% and a further 15 are currently on the University doctoral track programme or registered for a PhD, bringing our overall percentage of with or gaining a PhD to 45%.

Support for research students

The numbers of students enrolled on our Masters programmes for 2011/12 number of 300. We currently have 143 students registered for a MPhil/PhD.

The School is committed to providing a supportive and well resourced environment for individuals wishing to pursue a clinical academic or academic career. It provides excellent supervision opportunities from world leading research teams and all research students are linked to one of the Schools research groups, contributing to established programmes of research which include: health services research; care of the elderly and dementia; long term conditions; health care delivery, infection prevention; maternal health; communication sciences; visual sciences; and public health and policy. These programmes resonate well with many of the priorities of our health care provider partners.

Collaboration and engagement with Trust partners

A key component of our 'virtual academy' vision is to facilitate higher levels of research collaboration and engagement with Trust partners. This has been achieved by the joint appointments between the School and our Trust partners. As members of the UCL Partners, the School is well positioned to provide the academic infrastructure for clinical academic career pathway development for nurses, midwives and other health professionals.