About the toolkit authors

In February 2021, the UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) awarded funding for a Community of Practice (CoP) to provide a structured mechanism for sharing learning and development across UKPRP-funded consortia and networks, interdisciplinary collaborations which address challenges in the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases.

The aim of the researcher-led Community of Practice is to co-develop practice, current thinking, and supporting resources in areas of shared interest in order to enhance the effectiveness and societal impact of both UKPRP-funded and wider prevention research. The CoP will improve ways of working, generate learning and support impact on prevention research, policy and practice beyond that which could be achieved by each funded group acting alone.

Multi-sector, multi-disciplinary programmes of research can be complex to establish and manage effectively. The Management Theme of the CoP seeks to identify and share learning around the formation, implementation and operation of an effective multi-sector collaborative groups.  

This toolkit was written by Sancha Martin, the lead on the Community of Practice Management theme and Lucy Gavens (previous co-lead of the theme).  Content has been reviewed and refined by input from the managers of the other Consortia and Networks: Rachel Brierly (TRUDD), Alice MacLachlan (PHASE), Heather Lodge (PETRA), Angela Mullens (GENIUS),  Emma Stewart (MaTCHnet) and Jane West (ActEarly).

Sancha is the Consortium Manager for the Shaping Public hEalth poliCies To Reduce IneqUalities and harM (SPECTRUM) Consortium.  She has been managing large-scale, complex, international collaborations - and those involved in them - since 2010. After cutting her teeth at at the Wellcome Sanger Institute managing the day-to-day activities of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) Breast Cancer working group which involved 30 institutions from across 30 countries (2009-2015) in addition to a number of other smaller projects, she relocated to her native Scotland and accepted a post at the University of Glasgow.  During her time in Glasgow, Sancha administered the Scottish Genomes Partnership, The International Cancer Genome Consortium ARGO Project, and Precision Panc — a complex and challenging project that uses precision medicine for the treatment of pancreatic cancer before taking the position of project manager on IMID-Bio-UK an MRC-funded Consortium to set up a biobank of immune disease samples and associated clinical data (2015-2019).

Lucy is a Public Health Specialist and Researcher with broad interests in policy and practice to improve the wider determinants of health and ways to support individual and societal behaviour change. Lucy is currently a Consultant in Public Health at Lincolnshire County Council. Between September 2019 and August 2021 Lucy was the Consortium Manager for SIPHER, based at the University of Sheffield.