Radiographers Incubator

The NIHR Incubators address areas where there is a need to build research capacity on a national level. NIHR provides some funding to enable key stakeholders to identify the barriers that exist and to suggest and implement, where possible, solutions to building research capacity in a sustainable and meaningful way.

This initiative aims to encourage early career interest in target disciplines to build identifiable communities through networking and provision of bespoke training and development support. Incubators are virtual, managed across multiple sites and organised by discipline. They provide targeted high level career development support, led by experts in the field and supported by the NIHR. Incubators are bespoke to meet the needs of each area and are developing at different paces.

This Incubator is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The views expressed on this website/webpage are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

An untapped clinical profession academically, our Incubator aims to support diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers, ultrasonographers and nuclear medicine technologists to develop, drive, lead and support high quality research in order to improve health outcomes, patient experience and service delivery. Radiographers are ideally placed to address the challenges of ever-increasing NHS demands and new scientific advances, which have the potential to revolutionise care. Our Incubator will grow an inclusive, national network including student and NHS radiographers, academic clinical imaging and medical oncology centres, undergraduate and postgraduate providers, professional bodies, industry and NHS service leads.

The work will include identifying barriers to research involvement and, recognising the specific needs of different radiography roles, develop a work plan to grow the number of research active radiographers. Over the three year duration the Incubator will create a radiographer-specific programme of:

• research development opportunities
• toolkits and events
• mentoring
• career guidance
• increase the number of successful applicants for funded research awards

There is a clear need to address the barriers that prevent radiographers from engaging and leading research as well as provide a comprehensive programme of support. The award of NIHR Incubator funding provides an exciting opportunity for us to support and build research capacity in radiography on a national level.