NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) – North West Coast

The Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) evolved from the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) project started in 2016 which was funded by the Secretary for Health. When this finished in 2019 the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) was born and we have ben a key partner since.

This year, the Community and Research Engagement Network (CoREN) have co-designed a series of knowledge mobilisation events to highlight priority topics within local places. These online lunch time events have been very successful and Healthy Living have delivered two so far. Examples of such events by us and partners have been on the Cost of Living and Trauma Informed Communities – a Collaborative Approach. We continue to share learnings from past CoREN events and projects in creative and co-produced ways and bring it to our Research Collaboration Café which has been newly developed.

The CoREN is now working with partners and other projects, to scope and map the points where community engagement occurs in applied health research and disseminate this information across the health and care system to allow better connectivity and more ‘joined up’ thinking.

There are also discussions happening to see how knowledge, evidence, and data from Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprise sector is stored and shared, and where the gap is between the voices of lived experience and how it feeds into priorities in both research and service delivery at a national, regional and local level.