This week’s leadership message comes from Kate Robinson, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire and Humber Communications Lead and BaBi Network Coordinating Midwife

Hello, my name is Kate. I am a Senior Research Midwife and also the Communications Lead for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire & Humber. I know what you are thinking…how has a midwife ended up in communications? Well, it’s one of those situations where all your previous roles and experiences finally come together to complement each other nicely in one job.

I graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2004 with a degree in events management and worked in various roles before moving into public relations for a property PR firm in Leeds. I loved PR and marketing, but I felt like something was missing, and I wanted to help make things better! Fast forward 10 years and after the birth of my son I decided to become a midwife. I left PR, marketing and events behind and enrolled at Bradford University to do midwifery.

I loved midwifery, but it wasn’t long until I stumbled across research delivery, learning that evidence shows clinically research active hospitals have better patient care outcomes. More importantly, a review of over 20,000 women who took part in women’s health studies found that they had 25% better odds of improved outcomes; this benefit increased to 38% in higher quality studies and to 43% in those where the intervention was not available to non-participants (Nijjar SK et al BJOG 124: 863-871, 2017). This really ignited a passion in me to be at the forefront of making things better for women and their babies and give EVERY woman an opportunity to be involved in research. I always say, if there was anything else identified that could improve outcomes for women and babies, we would be doing it, so why aren’t we offering research to every pregnant woman in our Trusts?

Whilst running the women’s research team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, I set up the BaBi Leeds study. BaBi Leeds is part of the BaBi Network, a network of local electronic birth cohort studies supported by the Born in Bradford programme and the NIHR ARC Yorkshire & Humber (YH ARC). BaBi sites invite pregnant women to join the study and allow health researchers to join together routinely collected data about them and their baby with the aim to improve the health and wellbeing of families through research. It wasn’t long after that the BaBi Network asked me to go on secondment to Bradford, to help other Trusts across the country set up their ‘BaBi’.

I have currently supported 12 sites to set up BaBi, creating three communities of practice for collaboration and knowledge sharing, and so far, the BaBi sites have recruited almost 35000 participants! The BaBi sites are now working on data linkage, and identifying opportunities to work collaboratively with policy advisors, local authorities, and researchers to answer important local questions with the data based on local priorities, to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals is also the host of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire & Humber. Knowing my previous PR and Marketing background from other work we have done together, the programme manager for YH ARC asked if I would help them with the dissemination of the YH ARC’s knowledge and evidence, raise the profile and understanding of the ARC and be its dedicated comms lead.

So here I am!

My communications lead role combines my favourite things – public relations, marketing, and health research. I feel very lucky to be able to use everything I have learnt over the years to be part of the ARC, helping to improve the lives of the 5.4 million people who live in Yorkshire and Humber.

The National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) recently confirmed that ARC Yorkshire & Humber has received an 18-month costed extension, taking us to the end of March 2026.

This extension will enable us to carry on working in collaboration with the leading health and care research expertise from universities, NHS hospital trusts, commissioners, local authorities and other partners across our region to set research priorities, increase public participation in research, and drive the translation of evidence into real health improvements.

My role during the extension is to focus on dissemination and mobilisation of the knowledge and evidence that we have generated so far, whilst raising the profile of YH ARC and increasing understanding of what YH ARC does and can do. We will do this through regular newsletters, webinars, events, our popular lunch & learn series, networking and revamping our website and promotional materials. Please sign up to our YH ARC newsletter here.

As always, I’m looking for my next learning opportunity….. so as part of my role I will be exploring knowledge mobilisation, and how it can help our ARC researchers share their research with the people who can use it and create new knowledge to catalyse change. I believe a combined approach of communication, dissemination and knowledge mobilisation will ensure the YH ARC is able to mobilise research evidence into practice quickly and effectively to benefit Yorkshire and Humber.

If you would like to get in touch about the YH ARC or BaBi, please email me on kate.robinson@bthft.nhs.uk. You can also connect on X (@Katesagogo and @NIHR_ARC_YH) or LinkedIn.

Thank you for reading.