Research
The purpose of research at Change Grow Live is to deliver work that improves the lives of people who use our services.
Our research priorities are shaped by listening to what people tell us. This means we can gather evidence from experience and collaborate internally and externally to influence policy, shape future practice, and set the standard for our field.
We invite external researchers to carry out impactful projects with our staff, service users, and data. This page explains everything you need to know about doing research with us.
Our Research Principles
These principles guide researchers in designing and carrying out robust and ethical research that benefits the people who use our services.
Student researchers
Undergraduate students: Limited capacity means we cannot accept applications from undergraduate students.
Master’s Students: We welcome applications from Master's students that involve our staff and volunteers. We cannot approve studies recruiting our services users or analysing their data. This is in line with Health Research Authority guidance.
PhD students: Where recruiting or using the data on people who access our services, we will ask you to apply for approval from the Social Care Research Ethics Committee at the Health Research Authority.
You can find more detail on how to apply for Research Ethics Committee review here.
Before you start your application
All university-affiliated studies must undergo university ethical review. Evidence of ethical approval must be sent to the research team to support the application.
As providers of health and social care services, we ask that all research involving service users, or their data is approved by the Social Care Research Ethics Committee at the Health Research Authority. Many of our services are provided on behalf of the NHS and, for research ethics purposes, service users are considered to be NHS patients.
You can find more detail on how to apply for Research Ethics Committee review here.
Change Grow Live Study Sponsor
Researchers must identify an internal study sponsor as part of their application. A sponsor is a member of Change Grow Live staff who has been approached prior to submitting the application and agreed to support the project.
If the researcher is struggling to find an appropriate study sponsor, the Research team can help identify a colleague.
External Research application process
Applications and supporting research documents will be reviewed by our oversight group, who meet every 8 weeks.
The cut off dates for these meetings in 2021/22 are:
2021:
13th July
7th September
2nd November
2022:
11th Jan
8th March
3rd May
If you have any questions about your application or would like to discuss your proposed study, please email us at [email protected].
Research we've contributed to
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Learning from our mistakes – how medicine errors helped us improve how we do things
To make sure we’re always improving and learning from mistakes, the drug and alcohol team at Spectrum Drug and Alcohol Recovery Services looked at 65 prescribing errors that had taken place over 3 months. We explored why they happened, and how to stop them happening again.
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Substance use and intellectual disabilities
We funded this piece of research into the prevalence of alcohol, smoking, and illicit drug use among people with intellectual disabilities.
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Fentanyl use in the UK
Our medical director Dr Prun Bijral contributed to this research into fentanyl use among people who use illegal opioids in the UK.
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Research into understanding drug cravings
An article in the journal Addiction Biology on understanding the triggers for drug cravings, which our medical director Dr Prun Bijral contributed to.