Research

Overview

Research at BSR: helping you find research opportunities that encourage development of the science and practice of rheumatology.

Research is a key part of our daily function, helping to deliver excellence in rheumatology care.

Besides the registers, guidelines and other quality improvement initiatives, we offer other professional development opportunities throughout the year.

These range from offering and promoting funding opportunities, taking part in research surveys and participating in relevant courses.

Advanced Career Research Funding Call

Our advanced career funding call was launched in 2023, with £250,000 of funding available over two years.

This funding call was open to members who had a track record of research in rheumatology and was in addition to our longstanding Early Career Funding call, which is for those members taking their first steps in their research careers.

The advanced career funding call was aimed at proposals which improve patient outcomes and influence service development.

The details of the winners of this call can be found below:

Dr Laura Coates, from the University of Oxford: Optimising Patient-Initiated Follow-Up (PIFU) in rheumatology – development of a co-designed PIFU toolkit for patients and clinicians.
Dr Charlotte Sharp, from the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust: Supporting the rheumatology multidisciplinary team to write directly to patients
Dr James Prior, from Keele University: Flares in Axial Spondyloarthritis - Treating with Effective Resources (FASTER) feasibility study.

We will update members on the progress of these projects over the coming months.

Early Career Research Funding Call

This is for members who have not had any substantial involvement with research to date; the award gives you access to an early-career research project funding opportunity.

We will not be running this call in 2024 as we assess the impact this funding award has had on its recipients over the last few years. We will communicate this information in due course.

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Early Career Research Funding Call projects

2018

Kanta Kumar, University of Birmingham - The challenges and solutions of engaging ethnic minority patients in early inflammatory arthritis clinics: an exploration of patients and clinicians perspectives
Kenneth Baker, Musculoskeletal Research Group, Newcastle University - The Cellular Markers of Relapse in Rheumatoid Arthritis (CeMaRRA) Study
Charles Raine, University College London - Identifying immunological markers of ultrasound-defined disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis in pregnancy

2019

Hannah Jethwa, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital - A prospective longitudinal single-centre study to determine if the performance of the Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST) can be improved by the addition of serum bone-turnover biomarkers to screen for psoriatic arthritis in patients with cutaneous psoriasis
Jordan Tsigarides, University of East Anglia - Investigating Virtual Immersive Experiences in the Management of Chronic Widespread Pain (the VIPA study)
Mrinalina Dey, Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - Assessing the utility of point-of-care testing of serum and synovial fluid to discriminate septic from non-septic monoarthritis in acute hot joint presentation
Varvara Choida, University College London Hospital - Development and validation of quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIB) in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA)


2020
Megan Rutter, University of Nottingham - Does having a rare autoimmune rheumatic disease affect a person’s risk of severe Covid-19 (admission/death) during this pandemic? Chris Wincup, University College London - Investigating the immunometabolic signature of early juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus: implication for disease stratification and targeting novel therapeutic pathways

2021

Natasha Cox, Haywood Hospital & Keele University - Exploring the Role of Digital Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) in the Routine Care of Patients with Inflammatory Arthritis: A Qualitative Study
Stephanie Harrison, Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine - Using genome wide association studies to characterise the phenotype of axial psoriatic arthritis
Kate Smith, NIHR Leeds Biomedical Research Centre - To evaluate the perceptions and experiences of sonographers being taught the “halo” and “compression” ultrasound techniques for the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis

2022

Patricia Harkins, St.James Hospital, Dublin - The prevalence of frailty and its association with clinical outcomes in Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA). The FIT (Frailty in GIant Cell ArteriTis)
Roanna Burgess, Keele University - Developing and testing a musculoskeletal national audit in community/primary care
Ryan Hum, Centre for Musculoskeletal Research, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust - Identification of Serum Proteomic Biomarker Signatures Correlated with Ultrasound Assessed Joint Inflammation in Psoriatic Arthritis


2023
Tanaka Ngcozana, Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust - Co-designing improvements in care and self-care opportunities for scleroderma digital ulcers Christine Chew, University of Bristol - Determining transcriptional biomarker profiles within the ocular and joint microenvironment in arthritis-associated uveitis