Enhancing Lives through Participation, Activity and Rehabilitation (ELPAR)

Projects should focus on one or a combination of the following:

• Developing theories and models that underpin our understanding of participation, activity and rehabilitation in different contexts. We are particularly interested in understanding how social, psychological, behavioural and environmental factors influence participation, activity and rehabilitation
• Designing new person-centred interventions with and for people living with impairments or health conditions to enable them to participate in the things they need and want to do
• Implementing and evaluating these interventions in a range of contexts (e.g. health, social care, wider community)
• Studying how evidence is implemented, particularly in health and social care settings, and developing new approaches in implementation science and knowledge mobilisation
• Building research capacity and culture in health and social care, particularly for allied health professionals, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, podiatrists and others

Our research portfolio currently incorporates a focus on older people, physical activity, stroke, mental health, person-centred rehabilitation, and the allied health professions. However, we would welcome applications for projects that focus on other populations and contexts; providing these fit with our remit, which is to enhance the lives of people living with disabilities, impairments and health conditions through participation, activity and rehabilitation.

We have extensive methodological expertise in systematic reviews and meta-synthesis, qualitative methods and participatory research, in complex intervention development and the conduct randomised controlled trials. The complex nature of the problems we address within a research means our work typically involves mixed methods.