SPCR Researcher Spotlight | Professor Adam Geraghty and Professor Nathan Davies

"My move as post-doc from a psychology department to the (now) Primary Care Research Centre in Southampton was due to a SPCR post-doctoral fellowship, awarded in 2010.

That move and the SPCR funding that enabled it, has been the foundation of my academic career to date and defined my career.

I quickly realised how critical psychology and behavioural science was to almost all aspects of primary care.

I used my first SPCR fellowship to begin two key streams of work on self-management of back pain (and other long-term conditions) alongside understanding/ managing distress in primary care.

From my fellowship base I was able to secure further external NIHR funding. I was awarded a second NIHR SPCR fellowship to keep developing this work. This led to another faculty fellowship, then eventually, longer-term departmental funding.

The smaller SPCR research project grants have also been fundamental in growing a research programme.

We have used a number of smaller SPCR awards to build the case for the importance of acknowledging distress alongside depression and anxiety, from this base we have now started to receive larger external NIHR grants.”

"I was awarded a post-doctoral launching fellowship from SPCR following my PhD, this allowed me to pursue my research interests and put me in a prime position to secure a substantial post-doctoral fellowship from the Alzheimer’s Society.

It was absolutely essential in developing my independent research career and I don’t think I would be where I am now without it.

Due to these two fellowships, I was offered a permanent position at University College London. My fellowship also enabled me to develop international collaborations, funding me to travel to Australia and subsequently become an adjunct member of Griffith University. 

I have received several grants from SPCR over my career both as principal investigator which helped me to gain some of my first grants but also as a co-investigator helping to develop many of my team with their first funding opportunities. I now support my own team with SPCR studentships and post-doctoral fellowships and can see the benefits it is doing for them in their careers.

The SPCR community offers unparalleled opportunities to work with some amazing academics and professional service teams. I feel I have ‘grown up’ in research within the SPCR community, which has a real family feel about it. The universities that make up the school truly work together and provide the chance to meet lots of different people from various disciplines all sharing the same interest of primary care and improving health and care for our population.

In the last few years there has been a huge benefit to me and my team of the NIHR Three Schools initiative – particularly the dementia programme. I now have projects funded through this initiative and supervise four PhD students through this. I also sit on the funding committee for the dementia programme with some brilliant colleagues, as well as the programme oversight committee for the NIHR Three Schools programme representing the SPCR.

These opportunities have enabled me to work with members of the other NIHR schools.”