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Professor Diana Rose receives Wellcome Investigator Award

The IoPPN is delighted to announce that Diana Rose, Professor of User-Led Research, has been awarded an Investigator Award from Wellcome. 
 
This grant will fund pioneering research over three years, bringing together for the first time the different elements of user-led research, and going beyond the current highly influential ‘patient and public involvement (PPI) in research’ model, to explore other approaches in the UK and abroad. Professor Rose’s group will investigate the historical developments of different service user movements across the world and their impact on policy and practice, and moreover will analyse the philosophical bases of this terrain and how they have challenged mainstream epistemology.
 
Professor Rose said: ‘This is my dream project. Nearly 30 years ago, I was involved in one of the first ever pieces of user-led research carried out by my local user group. So much has happened in the intervening years and this programme of work seeks to capture and conceptualise all these developments across the globe. It is a very exciting time although not always easy work to do. I hope this will be my legacy and of use to the new generation that is pushing forward the boundaries of user-led research today and in the future.’
 
Professor Dame Til Wykes, Vice Dean Psychology and Systems Sciences said: ‘Service user led research has already taken a big step forward and this pioneering new project will take it even further. This is a testament to King's approach to including service users in research and of course to the pioneering research by Diana Rose.’
 
A key feature of the proposed research is an array of outstanding international collaborators, which embody the different positions on service user movements and user-led research across different continents, and have unsurpassed collective knowledge. The group of six collaborators are Andrew Roberts, Chair of the Survivors History Group, Til Wykes, a champion of the English tradition, Sergio Carvahlo, a specialist in collective health from Brazil, Jayasree Kalathil, a researcher of Indian origin who has written on racialisation in psychiatry and is critical of the Global Mental Health research agenda, Peter Beresford, who specialises in cross-disability issues and new forms of welfare provision and Sarah Gordon, a service user researcher from New Zealand working on coercion. Service users will be interviewed across England, Canada, Germany, India, Scotland, South Africa, Uganda, Netherlands, USA, Australia, Brazil, France, and New Zealand.
 
Diana is the first and only Professor in User-Led Research in the world and is co-director of the IoPPN’s Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) with Professor Dame Til Wykes. Diana has pioneered user-led research, including the development of a training model for peer researchers to evaluate local services which has been used widely in the UK as well as in Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Bosnia Herzegovina. Professor Rose co-chaired the NICE Guideline and Quality Standard on the Service User Experience in Adult Mental Health Service. Diana has been PPI lead on a number of large programme grants, and is Principal Investigator for NIHR research looking at how service users and service user organisations shape mental health services in three NHS Trusts, using unusual methodologies in this field, particularly ethnography.