Fuse Physical Activity Network
The Fuse Physical Activity Network aims to build research capacity in physical activity related public health research for those working in policy, practice and academia by sharing knowledge, providing networking opportunities, and stimulating debate across sector boundaries.
The Network organises workshops modelled on the successful Fuse Quarterly Research Meeting (QRM) template, which are collaboratively organised by academic and local authority colleagues on topics relevant to public health practice. Each workshop typically attracts around 80 delegates, and feature nationally and internationally renowned speakers from academia, and policy and practice. During the Covid-19 pandemic the events morphed into a series of successful ‘Pop-Up’ online workshops, attracting much larger audiences.
Workshop outcomes have included research collaborations, PhD supervisions and revisions of local authority commissioning briefs. The members are now developing a research agenda for the next five years based on focus group discussions held at a 10th anniversary event. As part of this, a paper published in BMC Public Health, based on a research project carried out with participants at workshops in April and December 2018, identified local-level challenges and opportunities for implementing physical activity policies. A summary of this output, aimed at practice partners and policy makers, can be viewed in this Fuse brief.
Core members of the Fuse Physical Activity Network:
- David Archer, University of Sunderland, david.archer-1@sunderland.ac.uk
- Oliver Bell, Newcastle University, O.J.Bell2@newcastle.ac.uk
- Natalie Connor, Teesside University, N.Connor@tees.ac.uk
- Caroline Dodd-Reynolds, Durham University, caroline.dodd-reynolds@durham.ac.uk
- Ellie Forrester, Ellie.Forrester@southtyneside.gov.uk
- Louise Hayes, Newcastle University, louise.hayes@newcastle.ac.uk
- Alison Innerd, Teesside University, A.Innerd@tees.ac.uk
- Scott Lloyd, Public Health South Tees, Scott_Lloyd@middlesbrough.gov.uk
- Nicola McCullogh, Northumbria University, nicola.mccullogh@northumbria.ac.uk
- Mohammed Khudair (PhD student), Northumbria University, mohammed2.khudair@northumbria.ac.uk
10 principles to translate national physical activity policy into local practice PDF 1,039Kb
Translating national physical activity policy into local practice is challenging. Here we present 10 guiding principles to support transferable knowledge exchange activities for implementing national policy. These are based on input and experiences of practitioners, researchers and policy makers from North East England collected during workshops run by the Fuse Physical Activity Network.
