The nursing professions making their mark in health and social care research

摘要

In the UK, the political capital that can be garnered from nursing's research endeavours is arguably greater now than it has ever been before. For example, following the UK 'Research Assessment Exercise' (RAE) in 2008, an independent UK broadsheet newspaper journalist wrote: 'Nursing, for many years medicine's poor relation, has come of age in the 2008 research assessment exercise. Academics in the field can justifiably claim to be world leading in terms of research' (Lipsett, 2008). The RAE is a peer review exercise designed to evaluate the quality of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). The assessment informs the selective distribution of funds by the UK higher education funding bodies. RAEs have been held in UK HEIs in 2008, 2001, 1996, and 1992. Where nursing has been entered into previous RAEs it has not compared well against other academic disciplines (James and MacLeod Clark, 2007). However, since the 2008 exercise, academic nurses have advised anecdotally that they have had many colleagues from other disciplines, including medicine, proactively seeking them out as research collaborators since the RAE outcome was announced. In addition, there is clear acknowledgement that the Governments ambition to position the UK as a world leader in clinical research is hugely dependent upon the contribution of the nursing workforce (UKCRC, 2010).