Pushpsen Joshi

Blog written by Pushpsen Joshi, Research Management and Governance Manager

When you work in Research Governance, no two days are the same.

When I was a child, my dream was to become a doctor, treating people, curing their disease, alleviating their pain, and finding new treatments. Unfortunately, I was not able to fulfil my dream due to my grades. However, when I saw a job advert in late 2004 for a band 4 administrative opening in an NHS research consortium, my long sleeping passion for being a doctor resurfaced. But this time round, it was with a different mindset: if I cannot become a doctor, I will do whatever in my capacity, to contribute to some of the reasons I wanted to be a doctor. I thought Research & Development is an area where new medicines and treatments are created, tested and ultimately proposed to be used in the NHS, to improve the health and wealth of society. So, when the role was offered to me, I grabbed it with both hands. It was my baptism to the world of research and development (R&D).

Since then, I have moved into different roles in R&D under new names (titles) from Band 4 to Band 8, involving photocopying, booking refreshments and taxis, finances of department, personal assistance, managing departmental inbox, reviewing student studies, research amendments, site level review and issuing R&D approvals, supervising junior members, site level commercial costing and contracts, managing teams and large portfolio research studies, sponsorship reviews of studies, departmental research database, amending and implementing new systems and procedures for the department, contributing to regulatory R&D policies by participating in national working groups.

In my current role as Research Governance Manager within the JRO, I lead a team of 10, mainly consisting of sponsorship and portfolio officers. The Research Governance team is responsible for sponsorship portfolios of UCL and UCLH sponsored research studies (excluding MHRA regulated trials), research governance reviews of grant applications, portfolio of studies where UCLH is participating as a research site, and amendment reviews of both sponsored and hosted trials. As UCL and UCLH are very research active, the portfolio consists of nearly 800 sponsored studies and 1000 hosted studies. My team gets involved in the review and sign off of simple questionnaire studies, to very complex novel drug trails. As research means “generating new knowledge” the work is very exciting, and the team has opportunities to be involved in some groundbreaking cures or treatments, such as COVID vaccine research. The sense of fulfilment and pride I get when watching or reading news articles about research projects that my team was involved in, is invaluable.

I would encourage anyone who wants to improve people’s lives to get into R&D, no matter your education or experience. All you need to do is follow your dream, never say “no” and be “hungry” to make a positive impact on people’s lives.