3 minute read
Foreword
by IN-SPHERE
Foreword
Professor Chris White
A message from Acting Executive Director
After seven years, people still ask, “What and who is Maridulu Budyari Gumal (SPHERE)?”
It sounds different and looks different because it IS different. Our second Strategic Plan (2023-2026), has been endorsed and will build on the strengths and investments of the first seven years to further define our identity and point of difference in a crowded research landscape.
SPHERE remains an ambitious attempt to forge partnerships between academic, clinical and health service partners to accelerate discovery into practice. Sometimes an organisation’s identity is first shaped by defining what it isn’t before knowing what it is, or will eventually become with time and implementation of its strategy.
SPHERE is not just in the health translation business; we are in the health transformation business. We aim to implement sustainable health service changes that improve the health and wellbeing of our communities, safely and equitably. This is why Implementation Science is a cornerstone platform of SPHERE. In this issue of In-SPHERE, Associate Professor Natalie Taylor, shares her insights into its fundamental practice and her role as an Implementation Scientist (p.10).
SPHERE is not just in the data sharing business; it is in the health services research and resource allocations business. We are uniquely placed to leverage our size and diversity to ask data-driven health improvement questions across the Partnership. We need to be able to answer them in time series evaluations, so that interventions can be rapidly monitored for post-implementation effectiveness.
SPHERE is not just in the evidence business; we are in the community engagement business, including and answering their priority problems. In this edition we profile consumer representative, Carol Vleeskens, who has spent more than 20 years working in consumer and community advocacy helping to guide researchers about which questions we need to ask. The importance of asking these questions is evident in the development of a dementia-friendly community in South West Sydney (p.17) or research into Inclusive Spaces for LGBTQI+ people (p.20).
In 2023, the answer to the question, “What is SPHERE?” is: whatever YOU need it to be. SPHERE fills the gaps around you and connects you within and across the partnership and beyond. It is supposed to define your unmet needs as well as source solutions for our partners on their health transformation journey whether they are consumers, clinicians, health service managers or researchers. SPHERE is a research social network as can be seen by the recent launch of our Women’s Health Research Network (p.9) and in our collaborations with other organisations for events like the NSW Cancer Conference (p. 20).
This generation does everything online. From ordering pizzas to partners. COVID accelerated new ways of working and doing business. While this edition of In-SPHERE is an online magazine, highlighting the achievements and opportunities of many, it is conceivable within the iteration of our new strategy that our membership integrates and socialises around new ways of linking in and scaling knowledge in an ever sophisticated and evolving way.
This SPHERE is spinning. Enjoy the ride.
