Social care researchers appointed NIHR SSCR Leadership Fellows

NIHR SSCR has funded three Leadership Fellows through our second call for Development Research Leaders Awards (DRLA).

The three personal award recipients join the five Leadership Fellows from 2021 and the School’s growing network of leading adult social care researchers in England.

The DRLA Scheme aims to fund and support individuals at a more advanced level in their research careers to further develop as leaders for adult social care research, as part of NIHR SSCR’s aim to improve the evidence base for adult social care practice in England. The Award Scheme is supported by the NIHR Academy and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Leadership Fellows

Appointed through open competition, the inaugural NIHR SSCR Leadership Fellows are:

Dr Clarissa Giebel, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool
Clarissa’s award focuses on addressing inequalities in social care for people living with dementia.

Dr Michela Tinelli, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science
Michela’s award focuses on applying discrete choice experiments to homelessness to support the commissioning and delivering of social care services.

Dr Mark Wilberforce, Senior Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York
Mark’s award focuses on developing applied research on the attraction, recruitment and retention of homecare workers to support social care practice.

Social care leaders

NIHR SSCR has long championed increasing support for skills development and opportunities to lead or be involved in adult social care research. The DRLA Scheme was introduced as part of the NIHR’s and our commitment to building capacity for adult social care research. The Scheme provides personal awards to individuals with a strong commitment to adult social care research to further develop their careers as research leaders. Successful applicants are awarded up to £50,000 and benefit from leadership support from the School.

Professor Catherine Robinson, Deputy Director of NIHR SSCR and lead for Capacity-building, said:

“I am delighted to warmly welcome our second cohort of NIHR SSCR Leadership Fellows, Clarissa, Mark and Michela, to join the School. They are helping to build a strong and sustainable social care research community. We look forward to working with them and to see them further develop as research leaders.”

Professor Martin Knapp, Director of NIHR SSCR, said:

“Supporting the development of leaders in adult social care research is critical if we are to encourage high-quality research with the potential to improve practice and inform policy. These Leadership Fellows are the second cohort of a network of leaders who will be working collaboratively with people who draw on care and support, carers, practitioners and commissioners to develop responses to current and future social care challenges”.

Find out more about our capacity-building programme at https://www.sscr.nihr.ac.uk/capacity/.