Kathryn Almack

Kathryn Almack is a Professor of Family Lives and Care the University of Hertfordshire and she is the Theme Lead for NIHR ARC East of England’s Social Care, Dementia and Ageing Theme Lead theme. In addition, she supports the social care capacity building programme within the ARC East of England ASCENT programme and leads a cross-ARC social care research network. 

Kathryn is a senior member of CRIPACC (Centre for Research in Public Health and Community Care). She is a sociologist 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 and chairs the Advisory Board for the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Specialist Centre for Social Care (York and partners). 

Kathryn is a co-applicant on DIALOGUE2 -Building effective digital post-hospital discharge and reablement services for older adults in social care: a mixed methods process evaluation using the NASSS framework (2026-30). Previously, she was Chief Investigator for the SCRiPT study (2021-25), one of six NIHR funded partnerships focused on building research capacity and capability in Adult Social Care. Kathryn also led 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 (2020 – 2026). Within this programme of work, Kathryn led 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. 

Get in contact with Kathryn at k.almack@herts.ac.uk.