Research matters: enabling and sustaining a research-positive culture for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals
Date: 21 October 2025
The Chief Nursing Officer for England’s strategic plan for research, launched in 2021, set out the ambition for the profession for “a people-centred research environment that empowers nurses to lead, participate in and deliver research, where research is fully embedded in practice and professional decision making, and brings about public benefit”. Executive Chief Nurse leadership is essential if we are to realise this ambition, and the ambitions set out in the complementary publications devoted to midwifery and the allied health professions, where research becomes every health and care professionals’ business across the NHS.
‘Research matters: enabling and sustaining a research-positive culture for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals – A guide for executive chief nurses’ has been developed as a resource for Executive Chief Nurses and their senior leadership teams. It suggests actions executive chief nurses can take to help their organisation become a research-positive healthcare organisation with research sustainably embedded in everyday practice and professional decision-making. These actions help build foundations in the 5 areas executive chief nurses from a range of NHS providers told us they needed guidance on:
- Understanding the research landscape
- Fostering a research inclusive environment
- Leading and sustaining a culture that values research
- Embedding research practice in workforce planning
- Cultivating partnerships and collaborations.