In order to help catalyse new interdisciplinary research activities between existing staff in the University, the Theme has made available the following early stage pump priming grants for 2013:
Occupational profile and contribution to cognitive and emotional reserve
Team: Professor Alison Murray, Dr Roger Staff, Professor Lawrence Whalley, Professor Louise Phillips
This project aims to discover how occupational profiles impact on cognitive and emotional resilience in late life and whether this association can be explained, at least in part, by brain imaging variables measured using MRI, using data from the Aberdeen Birth Cohort Studies. This project will catalyse research into the contribution of occupation to cognitive reserve and refine models of cognitive reserve that will be applied in future grant applications to funding councils to study cognitive reserve in the Aberdeen Children of the Nineteen Fifties. It will also complement a recently awarded Pathways to a Healthy Life studentship.
A pilot study to develop methods of describing the behaviour of junior doctors in ward rounds: Pump priming a CSO grant application to investigate resilience to stress and prescribing errors in junior doctors
Team: Julia Allan, Marie Johnston, Derek Johnston, Sarah Ross.
The project aims to systematically study the behaviour of junior doctors during ward rounds to determine the most robust, acceptable and feasible method of assessing: (a) junior doctors’ behaviour, including prescribing, and (b) situational factors that may increase error risk (e.g. interruptions, the number and stability of the staff on the ward round, conflicting demands, etc). This 2 month feasibility study will allow us to develop robust methodology that is practical in a clinical environment, for a much larger study (c£200K, 100% to come to the University of Aberdeen) to be submitted to CSO in autumn 2013.
Health and Well Being - A Community University Partnership for Participatory Research (CUPR)
Team: Dr. Karen McArdle and Mr. Rob Craig
The pump prime funding will bring together a consortium from the public and third sectors of organisations with an interest in health and wellbeing to provide the matched funding for a proposed KTP. It will also be used to harness interdisciplinary expertise within UoA in the field of Health and Well Being, where there is interest in PR.
Pathways to a healthy life: Pump priming funding application
Team: Dr Corri Black, Dr Mike Crilly, Dr Alison Elliot, Dr Nicola Gray, Professor Phil Hannaford, Dr Lisa Iverson, Dr Marjorie Johnston, Dr Karen McArdle, Professor Alison Murray, Professor Louise Phillips
We aim to systematically review and summarise the definitions of resilience, the ways in which resilience can be measured and the approaches which can be taken to investigate the concept. Double data extraction will be carried out in order to enable production of a high quality systematic review suitable for publication in a peer reviewed journal. The results will be relevant to those from a range of disciplines. The papers and resources identified in the review will be made available as a resource pack to the Pathways to a Healthy Life Theme in order to support others interested in resilience research. The review will be of assistance to researchers working within the Theme and should catalyse research within the field of resilience. This investment represents an efficient approach to gathering the background information necessary to support funding future applications and manuscript production, with cross-disciplinary working supporting the Theme aspirations to foster new interdisciplinary collaboration.