Inaugural bootcamp builds research fitness
Collaboration: Prof. Jane Farmer (La Trobe) and Prof. Judi Walker (Monash) jointly chair a bootcamp session.
A five-day research bootcamp run by La Trobe and Monash Universities in Bendigo in January will ensure that programs to improve rural health are based on the best evidence available.
The research bootcamp, jointly hosted by the two universities in the health sciences research and education precinct near the new hospital, provided a week of intensive training to develop the skills of academics and research students.
Fifty academics, researchers and students from university sites in Albury/Wodonga, Bendigo, Bundoora, Clayton, Mildura and Gippsland attended.
Evidence-based practice
Professor Jane Farmer, Associate Dean Research at La Trobe University, said we need good evidence to understand how health problems arise and are experienced in rural places, and how to give rural people as good health and wellbeing opportunities as possible.
Professor Judi Walker, Head of the School of Rural Health, Monash University said that both La Trobe and Monash Universities are contributing to policy and program development through their rural health research.
“But rural health research also has its own challenges and can be a lonely task,” said Professor Walker.
“The aim of the bootcamp was to help build connections between researchers, especially from the two universities working together, as well as specific skills.”
Communication skills – the three-minute pitch
The bootcamp emphasised the importance of communicating research results and included guest speakers from journals publishing in rural health and health sciences.
“One of the key skills researchers need to develop is the ability to communicate their findings in exciting and engaging ways to citizens and policy so they have a good chance of getting implemented – thus helping to meet social, economic and sustainability agendas of rural places, even in addition to health,” said La Trobe’s Professor Farmer.
“The three-minute pitch is as important a skill as writing up your research for publication,” said Monash’s Professor Walker.
La Trobe and Monash Universities signed a formal agreement in 2013 to collaborate in researching Victorian rural health so that they bring together each other’s expertise.
The universities plan to run further bootcamps on the Bendigo precinct to nurture the next generation of researchers.
Presentions from the bootcamp will be progressively added to the bootcamp page on the intranet.