A Methamphetamine and Emerging Drugs Clinical Researcher Workforce Development Strategy

Call for Submissions

A Methamphetamine and Emerging Drugs

Clinical Researcher Workforce Development Strategy

The National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs’ (NCCRED) brief is to enhance Australia’s capacity to respond to emerging drugs, including enhancing Australia’s clinical research capacity. Developing the current and future workforces which initiate, undertake and implement clinical research ranging from early intervention to tertiary interventions is a priority. 

NCCRED engaged the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) to develop a Workforce Development (WFD) strategy to provide a blueprint to enhance WFD among clinical researchers. The Strategy will be aligned with the National Alcohol and other Drug Workforce Development Strategy 2015-2018, other relevant strategies and policy initiatives, and NCCRED’s overall program of work.

Clinical researchers comprise workers of diverse backgrounds with different WFD needs. Some may have a clinical background and later attain research skills and qualifications, while others may be researchers who apply these skills to clinical areas of emerging drugs. There are essentially two types of clinical researchers; clinician researchers and non-clinician clinical researchers.

1. Clinician researchers include:

  • Those providing direct clinical services and are registered with the National Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, the National Alliance of Self-Regulating Health Professionals, or equivalent.
  • Clinician research collaborators, or clinician scholars, who have research training and are integrated into a training environment with a university designation.
  • Clinician associate researchers who can teach others to critically evaluate and integrate research into continuous practice improvement, collect/analyse data, supervise research and quality improvement projects, and participate in Practice-Based Research Networks.

2. Non-clinician clinical researchers are those with skills in qualitative or quantitative research.

Written submissions are invited to inform the development of the Strategy. A Consultation Paper is provided to help stimulate thinking and discussion but is not an exhaustive examination of relevant issues. Rather, it is intended to guide understanding of this workforce and its WFD needs.   

The Consultation Paper can be downloaded from nccred.org.au. Written responses can then be emailed to nceta@flinders.edu.au

Any queries about the consultation process can be directed to Professor Ann Roche ann.roche@flinders.edu.au at NCETA or Ms Florence Bascombe f.bascombe@unsw.edu.au at NCCRED.

Submissions close Monday 24 July 2019