Coming in from the cold? An analysis of research proposals submitted by the Nursing Section at ScHARRI, 1994-1997

Abstract

The Nursing Section at SCHARR was established in 1994 as one of six groups that constituted the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR). Based at the University of Sheffield, SCHARR was established as a response to the imperatives outlined in NHS Research and Development Strategy documentation for multidisciplinary health services research (HSR). The Nursing Section at SCHARR has always been fully supportive of such principles and over the past three years has worked with many different health-care researchers to maximise the nursing contribution to health services research. This paper analyses the features of 50 proposals made by the Nursing Section to funding bodies since 1994. Approximately half (52%, n=26) of all bids were successful and led to a total of nurse-related research grants worth 2.7 million pounds. Projects were significantly more likely to be funded if the method proposed was qualitative (or a combination of methods) or the lead researcher was a nurse. However, research was no more likely to be funded if a medical colleague was named as a collaborator, a statistician or health economist was involved in the bid, there were more than three named collaborators on the proposal, or the bid came from more than one university. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of recent critical commentaries on the topic of nurses'supposed relative disadvantage in obtaining funds for multidisciplinary health services research.

Proceedings of the NTResearch Symposium for Evidence-Based Nursing Manchester, October 22-23, 1997

“…We concluded the paper in iYTReseairfi which outlined our study by . stating that: 'It has therefore clearly been our experience that the assumption often made by some nurse commentators that NHS research and developmcnt exists only to fund research that is designed to lead to rationalisation of care, particularlyusing the tools of statistics and economics, does not, in our experience, warrant close examination' (Brooker, 1997a). I should perhaps add that our finding in Sheffield is not an isolated one.…”

Guest Editorial

“…Brooker et al . (1997) analysed the features of 50 proposals made by the nursing section at the Sheffield School of Health and Related Research and they reported that ‘projects were significantly more likely to be funded if the method proposed was qualitative (or a combination of methods) or the lead researcher was a nurse’ (Brooker et al ., 1997, p. 423).…”

Evidence-based practice: A mixture of motives?

“…Too much of our discussion is characterised by a mixture of impatience with those who are slow to catch on or do not seem to care enough, laced with a heavy dose of victim-blaming, and exhortation to go onward and upward. Stevens berates nurses but also attacks the 'established and self-perpetuating myth' or 'negative perception' of nursing's track record in evidence-based practice, and her impatience is echoed by others such as Brooker et al (1997) and Mead et al (1997). Mead says progress is prone to being undervalued and undermined because we lack ways of evaluating advances in developing a research culture in nursing.…”

“…as success stories to support that positive view. A study from the University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research looked at the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful research proposals prepared by a group of nurses working in a multidisciplinary hcalth service research environment, which included the authors (Brooker et al, 1997). Just over half the proposals were successful, generating ~2.7 million in grant income; nurse-led qualitative research, or multimethod proposals including qualitative methods, were more likely to succeed than randomised controlled trial proposals and/or those involving biomedicine, health economics or statistics.…”