Healthcare Professional Practice MRes
2 Years Part-Time | January Start

We’ve structured this course so that registered healthcare professionals with little or no previous clinical research experience can develop competency in designing, developing, implementing, and disseminating research.

The induction period will help you settle into the course, with interactive talks on expectations for postgraduate study. You’ll meet your peer group, and receive details about your degree structure, timetable, assessment schedules, and marking criteria.

Over the course of the first year you’ll study a ‘Contextualising Research’ module which will consolidate all your learning. Alongside that you’ll study modules on Quantitative research and Qualitative research, and explore the impact and influence research might have for future client care, and for your career development. All of these modules equip you to undertake your own major research project in the second year.

You will experience a range of innovative learning techniques, including a ‘flipped classroom’ approach where you have access to online lecture materials prior to seminars, group work and inter-professional peer learning, and an enquiry-based learning (EBL) approach designed to facilitate your own personal learning requirements.

Summative assessments will focus on communication skills and will ‘feed forward’ into your subsequent summative assessments. All programme assessments are authentic tasks which simulate the kinds of activities that health researchers routinely undertake, for example report-writing and presentations, to give you the best possible preparation for future professional research.

The course will be led by a team of highly experienced academic staff, who have been involved in a wide range of healthcare and education research. Many of them continue to engage in cutting-edge research projects, giving you the opportunity to become part of an inspiring research community.

You will be well supported by the programme team. You’ll be allocated a Personal Tutor who will be there for you throughout the programme, and a dissertation supervisor who will be in close contact with you during the second year. In addition, the module tutors are happy to help with issues specific to their modules, and the programme leader will be available to offer guidance throughout.

The breadth of experience in the department means that your allocated dissertation supervisor will be an expert in an area related to your chosen topic. This can include academics from other departments such as Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation if that’s what you require, thanks to the multidisciplinary nature of our research culture here at Northumbria.

We will also bring in guest lecturers from other disciplines and from professional practice, to give you new perspectives and insight.

At our base on Coach Lane Campus you will benefit from modern teaching facilities, and from being immersed in an environment dedicated to the study of healthcare.

This environment gives you the opportunity to reflect on your learning and collaborate with your peers, who will be from a variety of professional backgrounds but working towards similar career goals.

Technology-enhanced learning is fundamental to the blended learning approach, and each module will have extensive learning resources available through Blackboard Ultra. This will include recorded lectures for you to watch in your own time, presentation slides, reading lists, assessment details and a dedicated discussion board. Through online discussions you can keep in contact with your peers while you are away from campus.

The University Libraries at both Coach Lane Campus and City Campus offer an extensive collection of material, access to international databases, and training in information retrieval. Study space is also available in the library if you require somewhere quiet, and you can find a variety of study skills materials on the library’s Skills Plus site.

If you are an international student you can also benefit from the support of our Academic Language Skills Programmes (ALS). The programmes will run alongside your studies to help you develop your academic language and communication skills within a healthcare context.

This programme has been designed to equip you with the research skills that will enable you to both progress in your career, and make a positive impact on your client group. Working with your inter-professional peer group within the active research environment at Northumbria, you will acquire valuable critical skills that will last a lifetime.

You will develop the ability to critically evaluate current healthcare evidence, advanced skills in quantitative and qualitative analysis, and an understanding of how best to communicate complex findings to a variety of audiences through journal articles, conference posters or oral presentations.

The dissertation module will enable you to demonstrate mastery in independently conducting an ethically sound and innovative research project within your area of interest. You will apply the advanced research skills and techniques you’ve developed during the programme, and exhibit your skills in critical evaluation and synthesis of research findings, all supported by our research-active staff.

Our academic staff have extensive research experience across nursing, midwifery and health, where our work informs policy and practice to improve quality, safety and effectiveness. Our areas of research strength include Ageing, Later Life & Long-term Conditions (ALL), Healthcare Organisation, Practice Improvement & Economics (HOPE), and Healthcare Education and Learning for Practice and Patient Safety (HELPPS).

If you want to progress in your healthcare career then undertaking practice-based research is key to gaining professional recognition. This course will equip you to work with Higher Education Institutions that will help to shape the future of your profession.

We have designed our curriculum to meet the needs of NHS Trusts, to ensure that we will be equipping students with the right mix of skills to make an impact. These include project management, collaboration, statistical analysis, leadership and communication skills, which are in high demand across the sector.

Over the course of the programme you will become a reflective practitioner, so that throughout your career you will understand how to apply your skills in different contexts, and how to identify areas for further development so that you can reach your full potential.

You will be able to apply everything your learn within your own sphere of practice, whether that’s nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy or any other related field. Together with the major project based on a genuine issue within your workplace, this course offers the perfect blend of transferable skills and practice-based learning.

We will support your career aspirations with sessions on successful networking, self-promotion, and disseminating your research for maximum impact, as well as CV advice, portfolio guidance, and interview preparation. You may even be able to publish a research paper as a result of your work on the course. If you wish to continue your studies to PhD level, this course is also ideal preparation to give you access to those opportunities.