The School of Nursing and Midwifery’s state-of-the art Research and Innovation Hub was officially opened by world renowned Nurse Researcher, Professor Linda Aiken in May 2022.

The Research and Innovation Hub was designed to provide a supportive context to enable research staff and teams to collaborate and generate research that will inform healthcare workforce and the delivery of quality healthcare systems nationally and internationally. The hub encapsulates six thematic research programmes; Ageing Integrated Research, Enhancing Cancer Awareness & Survivorship Programmes, Mental Health and Wellbeing for the 21st Century: People, Organisations, and Places, J.U.S.T.I.C.E in Healthcare Just, Universal, Sustainable, Trusted, Inclusive, Caring & Ethical Health Care in Life and Death, Maternity, Family and Primary Care; and the Centre for Safer Staffing and Healthcare Systems Research (The CATALYST Centre). The hub can house 17 researchers onsite at any one time with capacity to support many more using an online booking system. There is also a creative zone for all staff, supervision teams and graduate students to use, where they can collaborate with external experts through the new interactive white board and conferencing system. We also see it functioning as a space for service users and patients to co-design with researchers’ solutions to real world healthcare problems.

It is envisaged that the Research and Innovation Hub will provide a stimulating work environment – a centre of excellence within the region - for research staff, graduate students, supervisors, clinical colleagues, patients and staff with research interests to collaborate, create and continue to foster a research intense ecosystem within the School of Nursing and Midwifery.