Olivia Luijnenburg, Research Associate at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, today spoke about the Delphi Technique at the Methods Club. This monthly online meeting is organised by members of the Policy Institute at King’s and aims to introduce different methods that may be of interest to colleagues at the Institute.

The Delphi Technique is a democratic and structured approach in which a panel of experts in a research domain try to reach consensus regarding certain research questions or topics. Among other things, the method can help set research priorities, identify potential solutions to problems, or obtain commonly held or divergent opinions about complex issues. Olivia argued that this renders it a potentially useful method for policy research.

Olivia Luijnenburg is in the closing stages of a PhD (which examines spirituality in care) and works at the Unit on the other keyworkers in care homes study and an ongoing Rapid Review at the Unit on skills gaps in social care.

The NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce is part of the Policy Institute at King’s, within the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy.