Research Celebration Event

CCG Research Celebration Event

On the 1st of May 2019 the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG Research and Development team hosted a research celebration event at Jesus College, Cambridge. The event was chaired by the CCG’s Chief Clinical Officer & Chair, Dr Gary Howsam and commenced with a lovely afternoon lunch, which was followed by 10 inspiring speakers from various backgrounds.

The theme of the event was prevention and early diagnosis with various topics discussed such as: dementia risk reduction, cardiovascular disease, behaviour change, and cancer.

The event was well attended, making it the largest event the team have held to date. The audience consisted of senior representatives from variety of organisations including the CCG, universities, regional research organisations, general practice and trusts across the region.

The afternoon also provided an opportunity for members of the local research community to discuss research at a system wide level. Time was allocated for networking midway through the afternoon which enabled numerous useful cross-organisational conversations to take place.

In addition, a plenary session was held after the talks with a panel of 6 members to allow for an open interactive

discussion with the attendees. The panel members were Professor Simon Griffin, Professor Jonathan Mant, Dr Juliet Usher-Smith, Dr Louise Lafortune, Dr Helen Macdonald, and Dr Gary Howsam.

Guests and speakers had the opportunity to interact with Slido, an interactive Q&A tool. A number of presentations had used different components of the tool such as word clouds, live surveys, and questions.

Feedback from the day was very positive. Attendees were appreciative of the content and the diverse range of the talks. One in attendance commented "My objective was to familiarise myself with the range of research going on locally - and who is involved. Objective achieved. Therefore, all topics were of some interest." Another stated that “All [presentations] excellent. The 15 min format plus plenary discussion worked very well. The slido app was great - easy to use.” Feed-back also showed that the afternoon served to further motivate a number of those in attendance.

Attendees were also asked to give their thoughts on the development of system-wide thinking on research. One attendee suggested that there should be “More research in practice - more practice in research” whilst another added “Resource provision in primary care, raising awareness in primary care.”

The R&D team are very pleased with how the CCG celebration day went and are thoroughly encouraged by the amount of positive feedback it received. Feedback from the day has also generated some very useful ideas which will be utilised by the R&D team in planning their future research strategy. The day also served a useful reminder that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG R&D team are part of a much bigger picture and that research is vital to the wider health economy.