A year at the helm: spotlight on our inaugural Forum chairs
When Rosie McEachan and Paul Bradshaw stepped into their roles as the first chairs of the PRUK Forum, they were tasked with helping to shape not just a new initiative, but a new way of working together across the UK’s longitudinal research community. In this conversation they speak about what motivated them to take on this leadership role, the unique strengths of longitudinal studies and how collaboration across disciplines can unlock impact that lasts generations.
Your journeys to becoming Forum chairs have been shaped by your work in longitudinal research. What motivated you to take on this leadership role?
Rosie: I’ve been director of the Born in Bradford (BiB) birth cohort study since 2012, and I’m passionate about doing research which drives policy and practice. Longitudinal studies are a hugely valuable resource for our scientific community, with the potential for major policy impact. I wanted to get involved in PRUK as a Forum chair to help bring together a shared vision and purpose for UK longitudinal studies and to help advocate for the support we need to ensure our infrastructure leaves a lasting legacy.
Paul: I’ve been involved in longitudinal studies in some form for almost all my research career starting with a role on the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime and moving on to lead the Growing Up in Scotland study (GUS). Through GUS, I’ve had the opportunity to engage widely with the longitudinal research community via initiatives like the Society for Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies, CLOSER and the European Child Cohort Network. I’ve therefore seen the benefits of discussing and tackling the shared challenges these unique studies present. The PRUK Forum role offered an opportunity to continue, and lead, this engagement whilst also providing a chance to work directly with and learn from some brilliant senior leaders in the UK longitudinal community.
How do you see the role of the Forum in shaping the future of longitudinal research?
Rosie: Working to achieve impactful research can be challenging and it is important that longitudinal studies work together and learn from each other to overcome these challenges. Together we will provide a stronger voice to champion evidence-based policy making. The PRUK Forum will bring diverse studies and researchers from diverse disciplines together in one space. It will give a voice to the whole community, allowing us to share our successes and our challenges. By shining a light on these challenges, and solutions, the Forum will help to prioritise key areas of support that will enable our longitudinal studies to continue to thrive.
Paul: The UK is host to hundreds of longitudinal studies. Whilst each of these studies is in some way unique, there is also much they share – especially in terms of the key challenges PRUK is seeking to address such as data discoverability and access. The Forum seeks to bring together the longitudinal research community in its widest sense to fully understand these shared issues and collectively identify how they might best be addressed. As PRUK matures, the Forum will provide feedback on funded initiatives and highlight emerging challenges. Through this continuous loop, Forum input will play a significant role in achieving PRUK’s vision of a strengthened longitudinal research infrastructure and increased visibility and use of UK Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS).
Rosie, your work focuses on environmental determinants of health. How can population research better inform urban planning and health policies?
Research from studies like BiB (and many others) have shown how environmental stressors like pollution, noise, and lack of green space negatively impact the health of parents and children. We typically find that families living in the most deprived urban areas, also experience higher levels of environmental burdens. This spatial inequality can increase health inequalities for vulnerable groups – this just isn’t fair. In Bradford, the evidence we have produced has been used to drive forward improvements in the city – everything from implementing a clean air zone to reduce pollution, refurbishing urban green infrastructure and informing supplementary planning guidance. We are also using our longitudinal research infrastructure in Bradford to evaluate the impacts of these types of investment on health. Key to our impact has been ongoing dialogue with policymakers in the city – this dialogue has shaped the direction of our research over many years and has helped to keep our work relevant.
Paul, you’ve worked extensively with longitudinal studies. What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in using long-term data for policy impact?
Longitudinal research presents a real quandary for policy: it’s highly valued for providing unique and powerful evidence to help address some of society’s most significant policy issues, but it takes a long time – and often a lot of money and effort – to generate that evidence. Policy and evidence needs also change over time. So as long-running projects, longitudinal studies must be able to adapt to changing priorities whilst maintaining longstanding research goals. The time and cost challenges mean studies face difficulties in securing the long-term and ongoing investment needed; demonstrating the value of the data to informing policy is crucial for making this case. With an already rich supply of longitudinal data in the UK, researchers are in a prime position to do this. However, to facilitate use of the data and maximise policy impact, we need to ensure researchers can find and access the relevant data, have the skills and tools to use it effectively and have clear and accessible mechanisms for engaging with policymakers. These are all things PRUK is seeking to support.
What are some key lessons you’ve learned from working across disciplines and stakeholders in your research?
Rosie: In terms of research – we all use different terminology but often we mean the same thing! At the start of a project or new collaboration it is worth sitting down and defining key terms and phrases. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or call out uninformative acronyms. The key lesson I’ve learnt working with stakeholders is about managing expectations. Research can proceed at a slow pace, but decision makers often expect answers immediately. Managing this can be quite tricky – but being clear at the outset about what you can offer is important.
Paul: A lot of what I’ve done and hope to continue doing is to support multidisciplinary research using longitudinal data. Across the many stakeholders and disciplines involved, whilst there have been different topic or methodological interests and expertise, there has always been a shared goal which is basically about using research to improve people’s lives. That might be through helping to show how accessing high quality childcare reduces attainment inequalities or by developing AI tools to produce study metadata and increase data discoverability. The many and varied amazing activities of those producing and working with longitudinal research each look to influence this shared goal in some way and that is an incredibly powerful motivation for collaboration.
What advice would you give to early-career researchers looking to make an impact in longitudinal research?
Rosie: The best impact comes from truly inter-disciplinary research, so be open to new ideas and approaches, attend as many seminars and as much training as you can! Move out of your comfort zone every so often, and don’t get stuck behind a desk – it’s important that you go out and talk to communities and policymakers about what their priorities are and how your work can help inform them. Also think about different ways of publicising your research – policymakers are unlikely to read an academic publication, but love one-page summaries.
Paul: Take a broad perspective. Impact isn’t just about influencing policy through research findings; to produce those findings, analysts need data and that data needs to be collected and curated. These different parts of the longitudinal research process each provide the opportunity for making impact whether that is through methodological innovations in data collection, initiatives to improve participation and retention or creating efficiencies in data discoverability and access. Think about the whole process, talk to others, share challenges and potential solutions, and seek to make impact at whichever part you’re involved in.
Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the Forum and its role in supporting longitudinal research in the UK?
Rosie: I often use the term “nothing about us, without us” to describe how BiB works with communities and stakeholders to shape research priorities. And we need the same approach with shaping the direction of PRUK and how it can support longitudinal studies like ours over the longer term. The Forum is vital to ensuring that our voices are heard.
Paul: The Forum isn’t just a one-off consultation. It is an ongoing dialogue with the longitudinal community involving continuous engagement via different means and including all relevant stakeholders. This ongoing dialogue will ensure PRUK is fully informed about the impact of its initial funded initiatives and can help address any remaining and emerging challenges. As a result, the Forum is crucial in supporting PRUK to achieve its vision of improving the use and impact of longitudinal research in the UK.
Continuity through change: a community-driven future
Rosie and Paul remind us that the real strength of longitudinal research lies not just in data, but in people – researchers, communities, and stakeholders – working together toward a shared vision. Our future chairs will continue to build on their insights, strengthening a shared platform for dialogue, innovation, and advocacy. This is just the beginning of an ongoing journey to elevate UK longitudinal research and ensure it continues to make a real-world impact for years to come.
About our Forum chairs
Rosie McEachan is director of Born in Bradford and the UK Population Health Improvement (UK-PHI) Healthy Urban Places consortium. She is an applied health researcher with a focus on cohort studies, environmental determinants of health, green space, air quality, and co-production. Rosie also holds academic positions at University College London and the University of Bradford.
Paul Bradshaw is director of the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen), part of NatCen. He is Co-PI of the Growing Up in Scotland study and has led several major longitudinal and social research projects across the UK, including the 1970 British Cohort Study and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Paul is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
