Goodbye PenCLAHRC, Hello PenARC: The next episode of health research in the South West

A new era of health research has begun in the South West after a South West Academic Health Science Network (SW AHSN) research partner relaunched as an applied research collaboration.
The former National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) South West Peninsula, otherwise known as PenCLAHRC, relaunched as a NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC).
The ARC programme is a NIHR-funded network of research collaborations across England aimed at tackling the biggest challenges the health and care system faces over the next five years.
Now known as the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula, or PenARC for short, the collaboration between the SW AHSN, Universities of Plymouth and Exeter, 25 NHS and local authority organisations across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, and local charity organisations is set to support applied health and care research for the local South West population while also addressing national research priorities.
PenARC will continue many of the projects initiated in PenCLAHRC but will also develop a research portfolio around the themes of complex care, dementia, mental health and public health, to enable them to continue addressing local health and care needs.
Professor Stuart Logan remains as director of PenARC, with Professor Richard Byng and Professor Ken Stein as deputy directors. Together they form part of PenARC’s broad range of operational and research staff with expertise in topics such as frailty and ageing, child mental health, dementia, complex interventions and service improvement.
PenARC’s team of researchers work together with specialist researchers who provide methodological expertise in a number of areas, including evidence synthesis, patient and public involvement in research, implementation science, and operational development via PenCHORD (the Peninsula Collaboration for Health Operational Research and Development).
PenARC looks forward to another five years of fantastic research, capacity building and involvement and helping to shape better outcomes for patients and support effective health and social care, both locally and nationally.