Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) and The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College London have partnered to foster the promotion of research and greater inform the practice of professional nursing and midwifery.

“Overall, Duke Health has a goal to connect with the world to improve health globally,” said Michael Relf, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, AACRN, CNE, FAAN, associate professor and associate dean for Global and Community Health Affairs. “This partnership helps us to strengthen research capacity and capabilities around the world, a key focus in Chancellor Washington’s Duke Health strategic plan.”

Relf added: “It’s also a part of our efforts to take DUSON to the world and bring the world to DUSON. This partnership will lay the foundation as we work to create a global nursing consortium to advance health and outcomes.”

The schools will jointly administer a travel grants program and a pilot project award to cultivate innovative, scalable scientific inquiry. Faculty members who are interested in extending their research internationally or who are interested in engaging in comparative research between the United States and the United Kingdom can apply for a travel grant.

Awardees of the grant will receive funds to travel to the partner institution for up to one week, where they will develop and submit a joint pilot project proposal to be considered for joint funding from Duke and King’s College. The pilot project will form the basis of a larger research project and external funding will be sought.

“The King’s-Duke partnership will provide opportunities for extending ground breaking research to inform the evidence base of professional nursing and midwifery in the United Kingdom, United States and beyond,” said Ian Norman, professor and executive dean of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College London.

“By working in partnership with Duke and bringing together our complementary research strengths, our hope is that together we can develop and test high impact nursing and midwifery interventions that will transform the care of patients and their families,” Norman added.

​Relf, who serves as the program liaison, and his King’s College counterpart, Alison Metcalfe, associate dean for research, will develop a team representing both schools to review applications. Once the awardees are chosen, the collaborators will have between August 2017 and February 2018 to travel to the respective institutions.

Winners of the travel grant will then apply for the pilot research project for joint research funding of up to $25,710 USD. Applications for the pilot project will be evaluated by a joint Duke-King’s College panel on their potential for growth into larger joint external funding bids and their potential research impact.

Successful projects will be confirmed in March 2018.