Research & Innovation
Applied research that improves how care is taught, organised and delivered — conducted with, not on, the professions we serve.
Research that changes practice, not just publications
The Institute's research programme is applied and educational in emphasis. We are interested in questions that a service can act on: how competence is best developed, how teams make decisions under pressure, how services can be organised more equitably, and how technology changes both.
Every taught programme at diploma level and above includes a supervised research or service-improvement component, so that learners graduate having contributed evidence rather than only consumed it.
research themes, one shared standard of methodological rigour and research ethics.
Our research themes
Health professions education
How clinical competence is developed and assessed: simulation fidelity, work-based assessment, feedback quality, and the transition from training to independent practice.
Health systems & workforce
Workforce migration and retention, task-shifting, skill-mix design, and the organisational conditions under which quality improvement actually holds.
Quality, safety & human factors
Diagnostic error, escalation and handover, psychological safety in teams, and the measurement of harm and near-miss reporting cultures.
Digital health & applied AI
Evaluation of AI-assisted decision support, documentation burden, algorithmic bias in clinical tools, and governance frameworks for safe adoption.
Research units and facilities
Health Systems Research Unit
Established in 2026 to lead the Institute's work on workforce development, service quality and health equity, in partnership with hospital and university collaborators.
Simulation & Human Factors Laboratory
High-fidelity simulation space used both for teaching and for observational research into team performance, with video-assisted debriefing and consented recording.
Educational Data & Evaluation Group
Maintains the Institute's assessment psychometrics, programme evaluation and learner-outcome analytics, supporting annual curriculum review.
Research ethics and integrity
Ethical review
All research involving human participants, identifiable data or clinical records requires approval from the Institute's research ethics committee, and from any host organisation's own committee, before it begins.
Research integrity
We follow recognised principles of research integrity: honest reporting, appropriate authorship, declaration of interests, data retention, and a clear route for raising concerns about misconduct.
Data protection
Personal data used in research is processed lawfully, minimised, pseudonymised where possible and stored securely. See our GDPR statement. GDPR statement
Open dissemination
We encourage learners and faculty to publish and to share findings with the services that hosted the work, including plain-language summaries for participants.
Collaborate with us
Host a placement
Hospitals and clinics can host internship and fellowship learners under a structured supervision agreement.
Partner on a study
We welcome joint applications with universities, professional bodies and service providers across our four themes.
Supervise a learner
Experienced researchers and clinical academics can join our supervisor register and support dissertation projects.
Bring a research question with you
Diploma and fellowship learners complete a supervised research or service-improvement project. If you already have a question from your own practice, we will help you turn it into a study.