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Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing
Woman conducting a Postgraduate Psychology experiment

Unbound opportunities: A silo-busting exploration of health and wellbeing research ideas

Register to attend here

10 February 2025 - 10 February 2025

10:30AM - 12:30PM

W010 Geography Building

  • Free, but registration is essential! Deadline for registration is Monday 27th January 2025 

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We learn to be researchers through our academic discipline and the methods it utilises, but we seldom have the opportunity to come together with researchers from other disciplines to view our diverse research talents through a collaborative lens. Meanwhile, across all disciplines, there are people who are interested in developing into researchers whose work makes a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals and populations.

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What is it? Two two-hour creatively facilitated workshops bringing together Early Career Researchers to explore ideas, make connections, and map our talents and interests in issues which influence the wider determinants of health and wellbeing - at all scales and in all contexts.

UPDATE: 

We have some exciting news! We expect the connections made in our February workshop to spark some exciting research ideas, so the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing is now offering funding to help attendees nurture and develop the research relationships and ideas that arise from the event. 
By the end of the second workshop (register to attend here), participants will be equipped with the support they need to make bids to cover the cost of travel, room hire, and other practicalities for small-scale focus groups, information-sharing events, and other such relationship-building activities. These activities could reach out to more of our colleagues here at Durham to attract and engage with people from different disciplines and faculties. We could also reach out to academics and professional staff from other universities, as well as partners from the North-East and beyond. We’re looking at community organisations, charities, businesses, NHS Trusts, and local or regional government groups as potential collaborators. It’s all about bringing together a diverse network to create something special!
Please note: the fund cannot be used to pay people for their work, and the activities need to have taken place by the end of July 2025. Funding is only available to members of the Wolfson ECR Network: if you aren't a member, you can register here. Applications must be submitted by noon on Monday, March 17. 

 

Who are the workshops for? Early Career Researchers (ECRs) of all academic disciplines at Durham University who want to meet others whose interests fall within the vast spectrum of the wider determinants of health and wellbeing. At the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, we define an Early Career Researcher in the widest sense: undergraduates and students on taught post-graduate programmes who are curious about progressing to post-graduate research; PhD students; post-doctoral research assistants; teaching fellows with an interest in research; established post-docs making the transition to independent researchers.

What are the aims? Firstly, it is a chance for individual ECRs to decouple from their disciplinary frameworks to playfully explore and take stock of their personal research interests, talents, and skills, and consider how they intersect with the Health @Durham mission statement:

‘Unbound from clinic, we frame health differently. Our vision for health is for people to thrive in the places they live. We embrace physical, mental, social and environmental health, envisioned as a synergy of self, beliefs, culture, family, community and planet’

Secondly, it is an opportunity to explore who we are collectively, and to understand how we can be our own resource. Through making connections with fellow ECRs with similar - and complementary - interests, skills, and talents we can explore new directions which have the potential to translate into health and wellbeing research projects.

Thirdly, the potential alliances and affiliations which emerge can be mapped to better understand the potential of the university’s early career research community, which can inform the longer-term strategic planning of our Institutes and Centres.

When? Monday, February 10, 10.30-12.30 and Monday, March 10, 10.30-12.30 (visit this page to sign up for workshop 2)
How? The workshops are free, but registration is essential and the deadline is Monday 27th January 2025.

Pricing

Free, but registration is essential! Deadline for registration is Monday 27th January 2025