Research Skills Academy
As part of our CLIMB: Cumbria award, which aims to build our capacity to deliver high-quality applied mental health research, we are supporting researchers at the University and across our partners to develop their research capabilities in applied mental health research, through our Research Skills Academy.
The Academy offers training and development, mentoring and networking opportunities for researchers, and researcher-practitioners at any stage of their career, providing pathways to develop both research projects and research leaders.
This page will be kept up-to-date with events and professional development opportunities for the 2026-2027 academic year. You can find out about and sign up to individual events below. If you want to find out more about the Skills Academy, or have any questions or queries, please get in touch at climb@cumbria.ac.uk.
Why a mental health-focused Research Skills Academy?
We have a wealth of untapped knowledge and skills in our lecturer-practitioner community. Many of our staff work in primary care or allied health professions, and are uniquely placed to identify areas of research need within mental health care, and bridge the gap between research and practice. Building our institutional ability to design and deliver this research has the potential to leverage meaningful change in mental challenges across Cumbria, and support research-led teaching and innovation across our undergraduate and postgraduate courses, for longer-term impact.
Through building our Skills Academy we will focus on identifying barriers to research involvement and recognising the specific need of different staff roles, and develop a sustainable model that will grow the number of research active lecturer-practitioners at the University.
Why develop your research skills?
Some of the best research ideas come from clinical and professional practice. Developing research skills gives practitioners opportunity to pursue questions grounded in the day-to-day issues they face, and findings can inform future practice and improve patient outcomes.
See below for ways to get involved in the Research Skills Academy.
Mental Health Researcher Framework
To help individuals to engage with the Research Skills Academy, we have developed a Mental Health Researcher Framework. The Framework sets out the skills individuals require to support or deliver mental-health focused research.
Our hope is that the framework is used in professional development plans and performance review processes to evidence research skills and development, and support staff to move towards being ‘research ready’. The framework is complementary to any other frameworks that may be used for for clinical/professional development, including competency frameworks for specific roles.
You can download the Mental Health Researcher Framework here.
Researcher Training Programme
This programme is being delivered in collaboration with the Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO) at the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine (PCMS). It is designed for practitioners and academics keen to build and expand their research skills and experience, with the aim of supporting you to develop, drive, lead and support high quality applied mental health research in Cumbria.
Information on upcoming training sessions and sign-up links, and recordings of past training sessions, are listed below.
Upcoming training sessions
[TO ADD]
Past training session recordings
[TO ADD]
Support for staff interested in conducting a mental-health focused evidence review
Are you a member of staff thinking about bringing together research on mental health (e.g., a systematic review)? Do you want to understand what the current research is saying around a particular topic?
We are offering support, training, and access to Covidence, a tool to help with the research review and collaboration process.
Support and access to Covidence is available between July 2026 – May 2027. If you are interested, please complete this quick form, and someone from the CLIMB team will be in touch.
See our introduction to reviews here. For more information on Covidence, visit their website.