This week, as part of Co-production Week, Carol and I were asked to contribute to the Scottish Co-production Network‘s series of activities. We have written a blog about ‘Trying to be more Co-productive‘ so that we can reflect on how the combination of everyone’s strengths ensure that we can work together to achieve positive change. This means communities truly playing a part in how decisions are made – where things happen with people, instead of to them.
Our first ECRF/Accord Webinar
Finally I can say that the recording of our first joint Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility and Accord webinar is available to view! Hurrah! The audio captioning for ‘The Accord Office and how we managed our response to Covid‘ was a bit trickier than anticipated and at one stage it tried to convince me that the Accord team was returning to the office to ‘inhale poison’!!! Happy to report that this has not been the case and hopefully we’ll have a bit more luck with editing the next one,
Thanks again to Heather Charles and Paul Dearie for delivering this session, it’s always hard when you’re first to kick things off but you were absolute rockstars and did a fantastic job.
Now I’ll just have a think about what I can rope you both into next…
Thoughts on engaging with OERs: Rainbows all round
Earlier this week we published a blog post on the Open.Ed blog about our thoughts on engaging with Open Educational Resources (OERs).
Rainbows all round gives a small insight into how we decided to focus on the creation of OERs and the benefits these will bring to our clinical research community.
Welcome back, stick the kettle on
You can find out more about clinical research training, as well as professional and personal development training for those involved with clinical research at our website. So stick the kettle on, sit back and have a browse.
Get ready for the launch…
Exciting news! Launching on 1st October will be our latest webinar series – Research during a Pandemic!
Working with our friends in ACCORD, we will hear from a range of speakers about: how best to manage your research; current guidelines and legislation; what we have learned so far; and thoughts for the future.
The first session will be delivered by Heather Charles and Paul Dearie on 1st Oct at 2pm. You can register your interest at: education@edinburghcrf.ed.ac.uk
If you have any suggestions to the topics covered during this series don’t hesitate in dropping us a line, or if you would like to contribute a session we would be delighted to hear from you!
And so it begins…
And so it begins! What stated off as a tiny idea, coming from a place of fear, all those months ago has finally started to grow. Through careful nurturing, a sprinkling a team work and with lots of open minds we have brought our clinical research education programme back to life. The relief that we all feel is immense and I hope that this is shared within our research community as all along we have only had you in mind. Our commitment to support you and your research in whatever way we can has always been at the forefront of our minds and the driving force in keeping us motivated and sane.
Our sense of achievement swells as the dates in our calendar fill up with new sessions for you like:
- A Practical Guide to Patient and Public Involvement – 18th September
- Doing Patient and Public Involvement Virtually – 5th October
- GCP for Labs – 9th October
- Research, GDPR and Confidentiality – 14th October
- PPI in Clinical Trials – Design, Recruitment & Retention – 22nd October
About our Education Programme
The Education Programme is based in Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility, spread over 3 sites in Edinburgh it is a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian.
Where a post doesn’t name an author, it’s written by Danielle, the Education Development Coordinator. Danielle has spent 10 years with the Education programme, supporting the clinical research community in numerous capacities including training, education, events and marketing.
About the Education Programme
Our aim is to provide an extensive multi-professional programme of education for individuals involved in clinical research; our main focus is to promote and inspire excellence in clinical research from the inception of the research idea through to the effective dissemination of findings.
The Education Team work closely with NHS Lothian and University of Edinburgh Colleagues, as well as other CRFs, academic institutions and industry partners to ensure that the education provided is current, relevant and meets the requirements of local and national clinical research communities.
Our website outlines the range of events, courses and resources we offer, which are tailored to the differing requirements of these different audiences.
Related links
Edinburgh CRF Education Programme website – www.crts.org.uk
Closing the doors…
On Thursday 19th March 2020 our Education team left the clinical research facility at the Western General Hospital to shut down all of its services as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We had no idea what was going to happen next; when we would see each other and you again or how our education programme would transform during the government enforced lockdown.
Our team embraced the new working set up, using the down time to re-evaluate the services we offer, bounce around new ideas about how to improve the programme and support our research community better, and build new relationships with contacts and colleagues who already have a lot of experience inthe delivery of training in an online capacity.
Going forward, we have lots of diverse plans to bolster our clinical research community, and as always we would appreciate your input and contributions as we bring these ideas to fruition. Watch this space as we release new dates for our online training and bring you an exciting new webinar series…