Learning Hub
Sign up to our newsletter
23 June 2026
Research-active nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (NMAHPs+) play a vital role in improving care for patients and their families. Grounded in day-to-day clinical practice, they bring unique perspectives that help shape meaningful research questions and drive real-world impact.
Despite this, pathways into clinical academic careers for NMAHPs+ have historically been less clearly defined than those for medical and dental colleagues.
Since its establishment in 2022, King’s Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) has been working to change this. KCATO exists to support all research-active health and care professionals across King’s Health Partners (KHP). A key focus has been strengthening access to research opportunities and creating clearer, better supported career routes involving research for NMAHPs+.
Two key initiatives sit at the heart of this effort: the Working Group for NMAHPs, and the KHP Clinical Academic Board for NMAHPs.
Together, these groups have already achieved important change for NMAHPs+ at KHP, including supporting the development of a shared Clinical Academic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) across health disciplines. The MoU provides an agreed set of principles defining how partners commit to working together to provide a good experience for the clinical academic community.
Working Group on NMAHPs
Established in 2023 and brought under KCATO governance in 2024, the Working Group was created to explore the barriers and enablers to clinical academic careers. The group initially focused on for professions allied to healthcare, but its scope quickly expanded to include nurses and midwives, reflecting the shared challenges across these professions.
Today, the Working Group is a well-established body with a wide-ranging membership including early and mid-career clinical academics based in the NHS Trusts, academic staff at King’s College London with clinical professional backgrounds, NHS workforce managers, and project managers from the KHP Clinical Academic Groups.
The Working Group is chaired by Dr Sam Irving, KCATO’s Associate Director for Professions Allied to Healthcare. She said:
The Working Group has pulled together a hugely diverse range of clinicians and managers from our partners, and has been really well supported by our KHP colleagues. It really feels like we have the breadth of experience and expertise we need to make real changes for our clinical academics within KHP.
The Working Group have developed and analysed a survey of barriers and enablers to an NMAHP clinical academic career, and they will be publishing their results as a research article. The group have also made a series of recommendations to support clinical academic careers in professions allied to healthcare. Dr Irving added:
Chairing it has really opened my eyes to all the roles we have within our network, and the good work our clinical academics are doing themselves to support the next generation. Finding out that despite working in disparate areas, our barriers and enablers are so similar, puts us in a really strong position to effect real change, and that's really exciting.
The KHP Clinical Academic Board for NMAHPs
Building on the momentum from the Working Group, the KHP Clinical Academic Board for NMAHPs was established by KCATO as a senior strategic body in December 2024.
Chaired by Prof Catherine Evans, KCATO’s Deputy Director, the Board provides leadership and oversight for the development of NMAHP+ clinical academic career pathways across KHP. She said:
The KHP Clinical Academic Board for NMAHPs+ is a unique vehicle bringing together senior leaders from across our NHS partners and KCL health faculties to work together to realise a shared ambition to grow and sustain our clinical academic workforce from first exposure to research to nurturing our future clinical academic research leaders.
The Board receives recommendations from the Working Group and focuses on four key themes: job planning to integrate research into clinical practice, developing research career pathways for NMAHPs, ensuring staff receive appropriate academic affiliations, and leadership and communication to demonstrate the value of research-active NMAHPs across the partnership. Prof Evans added:
The Board provides an important forum to address common challenges for individuals seeking to pursue a clinical academic career. Key focus areas are in sharing learning across organisations, identifying workable and sustainable solutions, and showcasing the work of clinical academics and impact on improving patient care and outcomes.
Working together to advance NMAHP clinical academic careers
The Working Group and the Board have contributed to a shared Clinical Academic MoU. The MoU will improve shared processes between KHP organisations on matters of employment including (for example) recruitment, appraisals, job planning, and education.
The MoU was developed through wide consultation with the clinical academic community and is inclusive of all health professions. The Working Group and Board provided key advice and insight into NMAHP clinical academic careers to ensure that the MoU supports the important role of NMAHPs+ in health research.
Together, these initiatives represent a significant step forward in recognising and supporting the contribution of NMAHPs+ within the clinical academic workforce. By aligning strategy with lived experience, strengthening collaboration across organisations, and embedding fair and transparent processes, KCATO and its partners are helping to create an environment where more NMAHPs+ are not only enabled to participate in research, but are empowered to lead it.
