Research Fellow in Knowledge Exchange/Knowledge Exchange Broker for NIHR PHIRST Fusion

About the role

Working as part of multi-disciplinary teams, you will support the Principal Investigator in delivery of research and knowledge exchange activity as a member of the Public Health Intervention Responsive Studies Team (PHIRST) Fusion, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Public Health Research (PHR) Programme.

You will perform the role of Knowledge Exchange Broker, and will lead on the team’s knowledge mobilisation strategy, while working on selected intervention evaluations to develop and monitor knowledge mobilisation plans and activity for each project, including Post Evaluation Reviews with key stakeholders, working closely with the PHIRST senior management team.

You will be working across organisational and professional boundaries, strengthening the capacity of the PHIRST Fusion team to interact with policy, practice, and community partners, exploiting opportunities for knowledge exchange and helping to develop new avenues for translational research in public health.

The roles is fixed term for 5 years, starting on 1^st September 2025.

About the team

PHIRST Fusion is of one eight academic teams that have been commissioned by NIHR since 2020 to collaborate with local authorities in order to evaluate their public health interventions. We provide local government with robust, co-produced evidence to support policies and programmes that will improve the health of our population and reduce health inequalities across our communities.

Our team is one of the original four PHIRSTs and brings together many years of experience in applied translational research in public health from previously UKCRC funded Centres of Excellence in Public Health (Fuse in North East England; the Centre of Excellence for Public Health in Northern Ireland; the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP)); and also from the MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit (SPHSU), with individual members of the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR) (University of Sheffield and Fuse), and the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University.

We have expertise in in the evaluation of complex interventions and natural experimental methods, rapid response-mode research, intervention development and adaptation, realist evaluation, systems thinking and systems evaluation in public health, and applied economic evaluation in a policy context.

Over the last five years we have completed 10 evaluations with local authorities and supported these local authorities to mobilise the findings into their decision making, facilitated by dedicated knowledge mobilisation plans and activities. For more information, please have a look at our website: phirst.nihr.ac.uk/about-phirst/phirst-fusion. We have recently been recommissioned by NIHR for an additional five years (2025-2030).

You will be based within the Department of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at Northumbria University, www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/academic-departments/nursing-midwifery-health.

About you

Applicants should hold a PhD (or equivalent experience) in a relevant discipline and have demonstrable specialist expert knowledge in knowledge exchange and experience of working with local authorities.

Further information about the requirements of the role is available in the person specification.   

If you would like an informal discussion about the role, please contact peter.graaf@northumbria.ac.uk.

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