Are you curious about research but not sure where to start? One Wirral CIC and Wirral CVS are co-hosting an "Introduction to Research" webinar designed for voluntary, community, social enterprise, and faith organisations who want to understand the basics of research and how it can benefit their work. We’ll cover what research is, why it matters, peer-led examples, and simple steps to get involved—no prior experience needed! Come along and discover how research can help strengthen your impact and open new opportunities for our communities.

Chaired by:

Karen Livesey – Director, One Wirral CIC

Karen has worked at executive level in both the health and VCFSE sectors for the last 15 years. She spent a significant period of her career working in VCFSE sector infrastructure. She has led the establishment of a Primary Care Network and has been a PCN National Board Member for the NHS Confederation. Karen has previously been a Director of Healthwatch Wirral and

in 2019 along with a colleague, established a local social enterprise, One Wirral CIC. One Wirral CIC is a CQC registered health and wellbeing organisation that provides clinical and non-clinical services with a particular focus on health inequalities.

Speakers

Professor Greg Irving – National Institutes for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network (RDN) National Speciality Lead for General Practice and Director, Health Research Institute, Edge Hill University.

Professor Greg Irving‘s research focuses on primary care, multiple long-term conditions, and service delivery, with a strong commitment to Deep End research featured in the RDN Strategic Plan.

He established the Cheshire & Mersey Deep End Network and supervises the UpCARE Fellowship in Japan. Educated at Nottingham, Oxford, Liverpool, and Harvard, he has held posts at Cambridge and received three NIHR Fellowships. Ranked among Stanford’s top 1% scientists, his work has informed 70+ policy reports across 30 international organisations, including WHO, OECD, World Bank, and NICE. For this webinar, Greg will be focusing on his establishment of the Cheshire & Mersey Deep End Network.

Amina Ismail - Senior Community Mobiliser at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Amina is currently working on the ReCITE (Building Communities in Research Through Expression) project. She specialises in co-creating community-led approaches to tackle health inequities, using storytelling and creativity to drive meaningful change.

During the session, Amina will share examples and case studies from the ReCITE project, highlighting the practical impact of their work and how community-led approaches are addressing health inequalities.

For more information, Amina has shared the Wave 1 CITs Interim Impact Case Report_FINAL2.pdf

Seonaid Beddows – 'Regional Community Engagement and Inclusion Manager, NIHR North West Regional RDN

Seonaid’s team at the North West RDN is responsible for making sure our local populations are included in the research data that future health and care services are based on. Her role involves reaching out to communities who are most impacted by health conditions to raise their awareness of the impact of research and the opportunity to be included. Seonaid will be sharing some examples of why and how the RDN attempt to do this as well as signposting to ways you can find out more.

Francesca McIntosh - Senior Research Engagement Coordinator at Voluntary Sector North West

Francesca McIntosh leads the BRIDGE Research Network. BRIDGE is a new regional platform that connects VCFSE organisations with researchers to make community engaged research easier, more inclusive, and more aligned to local priorities. Frankie will outline what BRIDGE offers, including its growing partner network, practical resources and ways for organisations to get involved or access support.