Associated organisationsImperial College London · Loughborough University · University of LeicesterEurope PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding£7.4M
PeriodOct 2022 — Sept 2029
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Leicestershire, where 55% of residents are from non-white backgrounds, is launching a PhD programme to train healthcare professionals—nurses, midwives, and allied health staff—to tackle long-term health conditions in ethnically diverse populations. The pandemic exposed how little routine healthcare accounts for cultural and ethnic differences in managing diseases like diabetes, heart failure, or asthma. Most clinical research has been done on predominantly white populations, leaving clinicians without evidence on what works for everyone. This programme directly addresses that gap by funding PhD projects that pair nurses and other frontline staff with data scientists, social scientists, and fundamental researchers. If successful, the programme will produce a cohort of clinical researchers who understand both the biology and the social context of chronic illness in diverse communities. That could change how the NHS designs treatment plans, patient education materials, and follow-up care—not just in Leicester, but across the UK. The long-term goal is to make routine healthcare more effective for everyone, not just those who fit the clinical trial average.
View original technical description
Leicestershire’s social and demographic features, including the highest proportion of non-white residents (55%) in the UK, provide a unique and important opportunity to address key health issues across an ethnically and culturally diverse population, recently amplified by the pandemic. We will capitalise on our strong track record of supporting clinical academics, with a focus on nurses, midwifes and allied health professionals, to grow the multidisciplinary research base in the inclusive management of long term conditions across healthcare systems and academic partners. Projects will focus on research-practice gaps in our areas of our research expertise to holistically improve patient care. Integration of basic scientists, social scientists, clinical academics, clinicians and data scientists to develop collaborative and strategic research programmes, combined with an outstanding training environment will provide an intellectually stimulating, methodologically rigorous and supportive environment for PhD fellows. We will establish a sustainable integrated framework for healthcare professional academic career pathways to build capacity in clinical research leadership and create an inclusive research culture. Formal evaluation will ensure sustainability and best practice sharing. The long term goal is to increase the visibility and breadth of healthcare professional researchers and to transform holistic patient clinical care addressing health inequalities.
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