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Q&A with Dr Katy Sutcliffe

Dr Katy Sutcliffe is Associate Professor based in the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordination Centre (EPPI-Centre) at IOE.

What is the focus of your research and what benefits do you hope your insights will bring?

My main interest is in developing systematic review methods. Systematic reviews are seen as the ‘gold standard’ in research. They use a systematic approach to ensure a complete, fair and reliable picture of all the relevant research evidence for a particular question. In addition to understanding ‘what works?’, the systematic review methods I’ve helped to develop explore why and how interventions work, and how they are influenced by the context in which they are delivered.

These insights make systematic reviews more useful and enable practical application of the findings in real-world practice settings."

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

I’m enormously proud to be deputy director of the London / York NIHR Policy Reviews Facility, which is based at EPPI-Centre. We provide systematic reviews of research to the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that independent evidence supports the development and implementation of health policy in England.

What attracted you to join IOE?

I was fortunate to gain some work experience at the Thomas Coram Research Unit during my MSc in Research Methods at the University of Surrey. Experiencing the really vibrant social research community at IOE was a huge motivation to continue my career here, where I've worked for 20 years now.

What do you most enjoy about your role?

Working with an interdisciplinary team of brilliant colleagues and being able to harness my interest in developing research methods to ensure that my substantive research is as useful as possible for informing policy decisions!

What's the most important thing you've learned from your students about the subject you teach?

I gain so much from working with students from a range of different backgrounds because it helps me to understand how to make my research more relevant. For example, students with experience or expertise in professional roles really help me to explore and understand real-world experiences of the complexities of delivering social and health policies and interventions.

What other area of research interests you outside of your main subject area?

Aside from my systematic review work, I’m also involved in a stream of qualitative research work – with Professor Priscilla Alderson and Dr Rosa Mendizabal-Espinosa – looking at children’s consent and shared decision-making in healthcare.

Do you think being in London benefits the work you, and if so, how?

London and UCL is definitely a vibrant place to work; being part of the range of excellent research centres in the Social Research Institute is really inspiring; and access to the UCL library is very useful when conducting a systematic review!