Evidence-based practice is the mantra of all nurses and health visitors. We aim to always give evidence-based care to the children and families we serve, but many of us wish to contribute to that evidence too by becoming more research active. We are often deterred from becoming more research active by the notion that researchers are all professors based in universities, and all celebrate a long academic career – and at the very least, they all hold a PhD. To an extent this is correct; research professors to tend to be the leaders of nursing research programmes but they are also one part of an increasingly diverse group of nurses at various stages of their research skills development, with many based primarily in practice.
The QNI's Community Nursing Research Forum provides an opportunity for nurses and health visitors at all stages of exposure to and experience of research, to come together to explore the skills and knowledge required for becoming more involved in undertaking research (https://qni.org.uk/nursing-in-the-community/community-nursing-research-forum). After a pilot year funded by NIHR, for which we are extremely grateful, the QNI is delighted that the Forum has over 1000 members – and they range from ‘research-interested’ to post-doctoral researchers seeking to diversify the methods of research they wish to apply and learn more about research methods they may not have used in their doctorate. The learning between members is fabulous – and the mentor matching scheme more successful than we ever imagined.
As a result, members are developing their research activity, and several have become principal investigators in the last year. Dr Ben Bowers, who is a Queen's Nurse, a QNI Fellow and the first nurse to hold a post-doctoral Wellcome Fellowship, is to be congratulated on his vision to create the Forum. Ben leads the Forum expertly and is an example of a District Nurse with a specialism in palliative and end of life care, who leads research but also remains in clinical practice (https://qni.org.uk/people/dr-ben-bowers).
‘Research professors to tend to be the leaders of nursing research programmes but they are also one part of an increasingly diverse group of nurses at various stages of their research skills development’
And there is more that we are doing in 2025 to support learning about generating research evidence to support practice – and exposure to nurse researchers from around the world. The QNI has partnered with ICCHNR and City St George's University to deliver a fully international community research in London in April 2025 (https://qni.org.uk/news-and-events/events/the-race-to-address-health-inequalities-by-2030-community-nursing-in-the-lead).
Based on the 17 sustainable development goals, nurse researchers from a wide number of countries are presenting their work. A competitive process of submission resulted in abstracts from nurse researchers around the world being accepted to share their work, so this will be high-quality research described in posters and oral presentations.
It will be inspirational to meet with international colleagues and to hear their experiences of changing practice in their home countries with the evidence they are generating. I have always found when meeting international nurses how similar our challenges are and how much we have to learn from each other. I am so looking forward to it! Please join us if you can for inspiration and a reboot – visit: https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2025/april/the-race-to-address-health-inequalities-community-nursing-in-the-lead.
When I was a relatively new health visitor in 1984, I undertook the first ENB course available in London on Nursing Research. The course and its tutor inspired a passion for research that has never left me and it has guided my career ever since, taking me to a Master's programme in Social Research Methods in 1994, involvement in many research projects thereafter and then an Professional Education Doctorate, awarded in 2013. Except for one year at Great Ormond Street Hospital where I was a clinical researcher in the respiratory team, I have never been a full-time researcher, nor followed a traditional research career pathway, but my love of research, always being curious and wishing to provide the best possible evidence-informed care for the children and families on my caseload, was all inspired by the nurse researchers I met back in 1984.
My commitment to evidence-based or evidence-informed practice has never left me and I was thrilled to support the QNI in the establishment of the International Community Nursing Observatory (ICNO) in 2019. The ICNO, led by the uniquely talented and brilliant Professor Alison Leary MBE, focuses on the community nursing workforce and our research informs workforce policy and planning for our colleagues in government and provider organisations, always with a focus on providing the best possible care for communities served (https://qni.org.uk/icno).
I hope you will be equally inspired by the international community nursing conference in April and I look forward to seeing many of you there.