Professor Kathryn Almack is the Theme Lead for the ARC East of England's Support for Ageing and Living with Long Term Conditions theme and and co-lead of social care capacity building within the EoE ARC region - ASCENT . Kathryn is at the University of Hertfordshire and a senior member of CRIPACC (Centre for Research in Public Health and Community Care). She is a sociologist and and has a prior background in Adult Social Care, working in voluntary and statutory sectors. Her main research interests include social care research; LGBT lives across the life course and relationships of care in people's lives (especially at the end of life).
She is an established social care research leader. She is the funding panel Co-Chair for the NIHR Research Programme for Social Care Kathryn was Chief Investigator for the SCRiPT study (2021-24), one of six NIHR funded partnerships focused on building research capacity and capability in Adult Social Care. Kathryn is also the lead for the East of England Applied Research Collaboration (EoE ARC) as part of the NIHR National Priorities Programme for Adult Social Care and Social Work. Within this programme of work, Kathryn is leading on one Implementation Priority – Digital Technologies for Social Wellbeing (DiTSoW). She has built significant partnerships with social care stakeholders and is committed to supporting the input and voice of those who use social care services and in particular those from under-represented communities.
Outside of the ARC, Kathryn is co-leading work packages relating to older LGBT people on a participatory multi-site research project, IncludeAge funded by the ESRC. The project will work with LGBT+ people and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to explore their everyday realities of negotiating inclusion in local and online communities, working towards co-developing solutions for inclusive communities.
Contact: k.almack@herts.ac.uk