New papers, books, or other updates from the QUAHRC team.
Sharli is Senior Research Fellow with the Research Support Service, based within the QUAHRC Team. In May 2026 she attended the International Community Engagement Conference at Rhodes University, South Africa, to give a keynote reflecting on the role of participatory research and community-based learning in cultivating humanity in higher education students.
School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just disrupt learning, they revealed and intensified deep inequalities that continue to shape young people’s lives today. While some children had the resources to adapt to remote learning, many from less advantaged households faced widening learning gaps, increased pressure at home, and rising levels of stress and anxiety. These challenges didn’t disappear when schools reopened. In fact, they foreshadowed the widening attainment gaps and escalating mental health concerns we are still grappling with now.
Qualitative research education is more than just being taught how to conduct interviews. At the Introduction to Qualitative Research Summer School at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience we experimented with how research education can be more inclusive, more critical, and more human. This year’s course was one of our biggest yet, and its collaborative photovoice exhibition on the final day served as an impactful reminder of the power and diversity of qualitative research.
In the second of their blogs on engagement, Hannah Jones and Grace Lavelle explore further the idea of engagement in online communities in relation to CommonGround, a peer support community for people living with long-term conditions. What is the best way to measure engagement appropriately for this unique project?
Hannah Jones and Grace Lavelle from the CommonGround project reflect on the idea of engagement in online spaces and how it applies to CommonGround’s online peer support community for people with long term conditions. They discuss the questions: what is ‘engagement’ in online communities and what kind of engagement do we hope to observe on CommonGround?
Are you a UK based researcher with expertise in qualitative methods? Interested in collaborating on cutting-edge mental health and neuroscience projects?
We’re seeking qualitative researchers and methodologists to join our growing network of experts seeking collaborations through the NIHR Research Support Service.
