Dr Andrew Passey, Research Associate – Knowledge Exchange, Newcastle University
Andrew is a PHIRST Knowledge Broker, where he works with a wide range of policy and practice partner organisations in the field of public health. He brokers selected intervention evaluations, undertakes evaluability assessments, and engages with knowledge users to help ensure PHIRST projects generate accessible and timely knowledge. Andrew’s current research interests are in public services co-production, approaches to the evaluation of knowledge mobilisation activities, and complexity in evaluation of public health interventions. Before his PhD, he spent 12 years as a policy maker in the UK civil service including at HM Treasury and the Department of Health, worked for two years as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Technology in Sydney, and spent eight years as a researcher in the UK voluntary sector.
Dr Peter van der Graaf, Fuse Knowledge Exchange Broker NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow and lead for AskFuse, the responsive research service for public health policy makers and practitioners in NE England.
Peter is an Associate Professor at Northumbria University, where he manages the AskFuse service. He is also an NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow.
AskFuse is the rapid response and evaluation service of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, which supports collaborative projects between academics and policy and practice partners in the North East of England and beyond.
His NIHR KMR Fellowship evaluates and support the North East System-Led Improvement approach for Best Start in Life (SLI BSIL), led by the 12 Directors of Public Health in the region to improve the commissioning of early years’ services and the evidence that is used to inform these services.
For both roles, Peter draws upon his extensive career in applying research evidence and translating knowledge from the Social Sciences and Health, both in the Netherlands and the UK.
Peter is interested in the interface between research, practice and policy making and how this interface facilitates (or hinders) social improvement processes at local, regional, national and international levels. He conducts research on knowledge mobilisation in public health, with a focus on the wider determinants of health (e.g. housing, health landscapes, urban regeneration) and how they affect people’s health and wellbeing.
Dr Peter Craig , research lead on Knowledge Transfer and Exchange, co-lead of the Inequalities Programme at the MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit (SPHSU).
Peter uses natural experiments and other methods to evaluate the impacts of public policies and other complex interventions on health and health inequalities. He is particularly interested in social protection policies, but has also researched many other kinds of intervention, from prison smoking bans to rabies prevention. His work spans both high income and low-middle income countries. He is the lead author of the MRC’s guidance on using natural experiments to evaluate population health interventions and was part of the team behind the recent update of the MRC/NIHR framework for evaluating complex interventions. Before joining the University of Glasgow, he spent 25 years working in central government, first in Whitehall and then in the Scottish Government. His experience of working in both academic and non-academic settings underpins his conviction that evaluation, to be most useful, should be designed and planned jointly by producers and users of research evidence.
Professor Ruth Jepson, centre lead for the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP):
Ruth is Director of SCPHRP and a Reader in Public Health in the School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh. Ruth has been involved in many different aspects of public health research for over 20 years. After completing her MSc in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, she spent over 10 years in the Cochrane Collaboration as a Review Group Co-ordinator, as a reviewer and on many of the Committees. She also worked at the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination in York University. She returned to the University of Edinburgh to undertake her PhD on developing a measure of informed choice in cancer screening. Prior her role in SCPHRP, she was at the of Stirling University where she was Co-Director of the Centre for Population and Public Health and Lead for the Physical Activity and Diet Research Programme.
Director of the Centre of Excellence for Public Health, Northern Ireland.
Professor Kee is the Director of the Centre for Public Health in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, and previously directed one of the UKCRC Centres of Excellence for Public Health Research (2008-2018).
He currently serves on a number of UKRI scientific advisory and funding panels including the MRC Career Development Awards and Fellowship panel, the Better Methods for Better Research Panel and the Longitudinal Studies Panel, having previously served on the MRC Population and Systems Medicine panel and the Public Health Intervention Development Panel.
He previously chaired the NIHR Public Health Funding Board (until 2019) and sits on the Advisory Board for the NIHR School of Public Health.
Director of Fuse, Centre for Translational Research in Public Health
Professor Ashley Adamson is the Director of the NIHR School for Public Health Research.
The School undertakes research into public health with an emphasis on what works practically, can be applied across the country and better meets the needs of policy makers, practitioners and the public. Professor Adamson is Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Newcastle University and Director of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health. In 2009 she joined the Institute of Health & Society where she leads the Public Health Improvement research theme. She was awarded a personal chair in 2010, Fellowship of Faculty of Public Health in 2011 and an NIHR Research Professorship in 2012. Professor Adamson was appointed Director of Fuse in 2016.
Professor Elizabeth Goyder (University of Sheffield), academic lead for the Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Practice & Research Collaborative (PaRC).
Liddy is Professor of Public Health in the School for Health & Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield and an honorary consultant in Public Health in the Office of Health Improvement & Disparities, Department of Health & Social Care (OHID, DHSC). She is the Sheffield lead for the NIHR School of Public Health Research and Director of Research for the National Centre for Sport & Exercise Medicine in Sheffield with a focus on the role of physical activity at a population and communities level to promoting health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities. She leads the NIHR Public Health Research Review Team which delivers evidence synthesis to inform national policy and practice. Recent topics include interventions to address gambling related harms, impacts of working from home, student mental health and access to local authority services for ethnic minority communities.
Mrs Laura Ritson, PHIRST Programme Manager
Manager of Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health which brings together the five North East Universities of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside in a unique collaboration to deliver world-class research to improve health and wellbeing and tackle inequalities. Laura provides and oversees management support to pursue the overall strategy and to ensure the operational aspects of Fuse are managed and carried out effectively, including Fuse’s membership of the NIHR School for Public Health Research. Fuse was previously funded by UKCRC but is now fully sustained by its academic partners until at least 31st March 2022.
Programme Manager for NIHR PHIRST Fusion which undertakes responsive research with a focus on local government across the UK.
