Abstract
Background
There are known benefits for National Health Service (NHS) organisations when staff are research-active including better patient outcomes, positive staff experience and retention. However there are known individual and organisational barriers which may hinder participation in research. The aim of this work was to baseline research culture in National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) infrastructure staff (and wider partners) in Leicester and to specifically: - Identify training needs to develop a responsive training programme.- Map career pathways and development opportunities.- Explore barriers to research.
Methods
This study received approval from the local audit team and comprised of two surveys conducted; across two separate data collection periods, Survey 1: specifically for directly funded NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and Clinical Research Facility (CRF) staff. Survey 2: open to all staff at BRC partner organisations. The survey was sent via email/ posters and contained a link to a Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) data collection tool. The data were extracted from REDCap for descriptive analysis and reported as frequencies/ percentages.
Results
111 individuals completed survey 1 in full and 287 completed survey 2. Nearly 80% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that there was good access to training and development opportunities from survey 1 respondents. However, 35% of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed that there were opportunities for funding to attend conferences and external meetings. Employer support was largely positive for survey 2 responses with only 9% saying that their employer did not support training/ development. Career pathway data was variable with around a third disagreeing that research career pathways were clear. Around 20% of people wanted to pursue a clinical academic career in the future. Respondents reported that they would like training in similar areas in both surveys (e.g. securing research funding and analysing qualitative research data).
Conclusions
Our results show that academic or clinical academic roles feature in many respondents’ career aspirations. However, career pathway responses and development opportunities were variable. Many barriers to research were evident including intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are consistent with current literature.
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Abbreviations
- AHP:
-
Allied health professional
- ARC:
-
Applied research centre
- BRC:
-
Biomedical research centre
- CRF:
-
Clinical research facility
- CROSS A Consensus:
-
Based checklist for reporting of survey studies
- CSV:
-
Comma-separated values
- ECRs:
-
Early career researchers
- EDI:
-
Equality, diversity and inclusion
- HCP:
-
Health care professionals
- iREACCH:
-
inclusive research environment achieved through culture change
- LU:
-
Loughborough university
- NIHR:
-
National institute for health and care research
- NHS:
-
National health service
- NMAHPs Nurses:
-
Midwives and allied health professionals
- PhD:
-
Doctor of philosophy
- QR:
-
Quick response
- REDCap:
-
Research electronic data capture
- UHL:
-
University hospitals of leicester NHS trust
- UHN:
-
University hospitals of northamptonshire NHS group
- UK:
-
United kingdom
- UoL:
-
University of Leicester
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Joanna Jones (Communications Platform) for advertising and distributing the survey to all parties and to Charlie Franklin from the NIHR Leicester BRC creative team for the figures used in this manuscript.
Funding
This research is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leicester BRC. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
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Ethics approval and consent to participate
Individual consent to participate was not required for this staff survey. The need for ethical approval was waived by the UHL Audit and Quality Improvement Programme (AQIP) institutional review board and registered as a quality improvement project (UHL Ref: 12825). This is in keeping with principles set out by the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki/).
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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Houchen-Wolloff, L., Paine, N.J., Valley, H. et al. Research culture and career development within the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) infrastructure in Leicester, UK: results of 2 annual surveys. BMC Health Serv Res (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15955-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15955-4