The new School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health celebrated its launch at the Stirling campus today to a large audience of staff, students and partners.
The School, formerly the Department of Nursing and Midwifery, has an expanding portfolio of innovative research and postgraduate courses.
Head of School, Professor William Lauder said: “Our new name better reflects the multi-professional nature of our world-leading health activity, a key part of which will be to continue delivering our professional nursing and midwifery programmes.”
Professor Lauder went on to stress that the name change is one which reflects the diversity of the academic community within the School and the trend in the delivery of health and social care which requires a range of skills in health care and public health.
In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) Stirling’s nursing and midwifery research was recognised as world class, placing it top in Scotland. Since then the School has gone from strength to strength, expanding its portfolio to include Public Health and Population Health, which covers the areas of Epidemiology, Occupational & Environmental Health, Physical Activity, Diet & Health and Substance Use & Addictions.
Professor Andrew Watterson, Director of Research, said: “This is a broader, bigger, better School, which has almost doubled the number of research active staff from 16 in 2008 to 30 today. We contribute to local, national and international health services and make an impact for patients, carers, the NHS and the health of wider communities.”
Practice learning at the School has been recognised as Outstanding in a recent review carried out on behalf of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Commenting on the review at today’s launch, Ian Murray, Deputy Head of School, said: “The three campuses of the School are ranked no.1 for research in Scotland and no.9 in the UK. We aspire to significantly improve on that.’’
This was the first of three launches across the three campuses. The new School will launch at the Highland campus on Monday 4 April and at the Western Isles campus, Stornoway on Thursday 7 April.