Trent Research & Development Support Unit

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• Eligibility and Charging Policy
• Advice & Support Clinics
• Training / Short Courses
• Information Services
• Research Capacity Building
• Initiation & Collaboration in Research
• Patient and Public Involvement
• Primary & Social Care
• Trent RDSU Awards
• Trent RDSU Initiatives
• Research Information Links

Services

Trent RDSU provides a portfolio of services designed to help individuals who wish to develop competence necessary to undertake high quality research. The portfolio is designed to be appropriate to the needs of individuals and/or groups with different levels of understanding, experience and interest in research. This will enable us to support the growth of research capacity by raising levels of skill and activity. Our educational and advice services are flexible according to need.  


Quick links to information about:  

• Registering for Trent RDSU support
• Receiving project advice from a statistician, health economist, qualitative researcher, information specialist or generalist researcher
• Our short courses in research methodology
• Awards to those within the Trent RDSU area: 
  • Designated Research Team Awards (DRTs) to support a small team allowing them to dedicate time to develop their research ideas
  • Research Capacity Development Awards for individuals, groups or organisations from health or health-related social care
  • Conference Awards to support conference dissemination by NHS or health-related social care staff 
  • Bursaries for User Involvement in Pre-Protocol Work for researchers working in health and health-related social care

 

We aim to:

• Help change organisational cultures and infrastructures so that they value and support researchers and research activity
• Assist individuals wishing to undertake research for the first time
• Help individuals wanting to gain greater understanding in a specialist aspect of research
• Offer specialist guidance to individuals and/or teams engaged in a research project on a long or short term basis
• Promote seminars and workshops for specific researcher or practitioner groups
• Arrange apprenticeship programmes.

In addition to our in-house services offered at each of our sites, we also have an outreach provision we can come to you to:

• Provide an existing short course to a group
• Provide a special course tailored to the needs of a group
• Advise individuals or teams on research projects
• Facilitate development of research interest, capability and activity within organisations
• Facilitate meetings and networks of researchers across a local/regional area.

Dissemination of information and improving access to information is a vital part of creating a research infrastructure. To support this Trent RDSU’s Information Service provides reference facilities and computerised information and literature searching facilities.

In order to strengthen research capacity in the NHS we work with individuals, groups and organisations. We support Designated Research Teams (DRTs) both financially and practically and have several Research Capacity Development Awards (RCDAs) available as well as our conference scheme awards. We support several research clubs and groups on an ongoing basis and are closely involved with Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Research Management and Governance (RM&G) organisations. Trent RDSU staff are involved with research projects and we actively initiate and collaborate in research.

Everyone wishing to use the Trent RDSU services is required to register – either on-line or via your local administrator. Registration is quick and easy, and can be done at the time that you book yourself onto one of our training events or into a clinic. Once registered you will be given a username and password for future access to our services.