New funding to drive knowledge mobilisation in Kent, Surrey and Sussex

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have announced they will invest £7.8 million for Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs) to build knowledge mobilisation capacity and capability within the health and social care sector.

The initiative aims to reduce the time it takes to roll out effective interventions, policies and models of care to address high-priority national and regional challenges and maximise the impact of research.

Key priorities for the initiative include:

• supporting proven strategies, interventions and models of care to be implemented into practice, responding to high-priority areas from national policymakers, the health and care systems and patients and the public
• proactively engaging key stakeholders
• building a knowledge mobilisation community to share learning, and
• evaluating knowledge mobilisation activities to evidence what works, for whom and why.

To support this initiative, the ARCs will appoint knowledge mobilisation “fellows” in local systems. These fellows will form a bridge between the ARCs and the health and care organisations they work with. They will be supported to enhance their skills so they can capture and communicate the needs of local decision makers. They will work with the ARCs to identify existing evidence-based treatments and models of care, and support them into practice, working with practitioners and service users.

As part of this funding, the Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) has been awarded £560,000, for a three-year period starting on 1 October 2024, to work with system partners to help bridge research-practice gaps and foster innovation and collaborations within the region.

The Knowledge Mobilisation Fellowships will be supervised by the Health Innovation KSS Team, bringing together their extensive stakeholder relationships across the core ARC KSS themes of social care, primary and community health services, dementia and children and young people’s mental health, as well as their knowledge of the system and experience of spread and adoption of innovation into practice.

Dr MaryAnn Ferreux, Implementation Lead at ARC KSS and Health Innovation KSS, said:

“Kent, Surrey and Sussex has wide ranging population health and social care needs and rising needs across all-age mental health, together with the challenges of the cost of living, workforce and care delivery in rural and coastal areas.

“Our proposed model takes a novel approach by looking to embed eight Knowledge Mobilisation Fellows into established service transformation, innovation or quality improvement team of our region’s health and care service providers and local authorities.

“By working alongside our system partners, we will be able to better facilitate and bridge research-practice gaps and support large scale evidence-based transformation that will improve the health and care services in our region.”

Further details about the roles will be available on the ARC KSS website soon.