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NIPANC and Queen’s University Belfast are working together to build a programme of pancreatic cancer research focused on awareness, education, supportive care, psychosocial experience, family support and service improvement.
The programme is grounded in partnership with people affected by pancreatic cancer and aims to ensure that education, support and service-development work is shaped by lived experience.
The programme is academically led by Dr Gary Mitchell MBE, Reader (Education) at Queen’s University Belfast: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/gary-mitchell/. It brings together doctoral, fellowship and funded research to improve understanding of pancreatic cancer experiences, develop education and support resources, strengthen professional learning, and build pancreatic cancer research capacity in Northern Ireland.
The programme complements wider pancreatic cancer research in areas such as early diagnosis, clinical trials, treatment and biomedical science. Its primary focus is supportive care, psychosocial experience, education, workforce development and service improvement for people affected by pancreatic cancer and their families.
Partnership with people affected by pancreatic cancer is central to the programme. Through NIPANC, the work is shaped by people with lived experience, families, carers, healthcare professionals and charity partners.
Digital education and intervention-development projects use co-design approaches where appropriate, while exploratory and service-focused studies are supported by advisory input to ensure that research questions, materials, interpretation and recommendations remain grounded in the experiences and priorities of people affected by pancreatic cancer.
The programme is structured as a tiered model of pancreatic cancer awareness, education, support and service improvement. It begins with public awareness and early recognition, extends to the experiences and support needs of people affected by pancreatic cancer and their families, informs foundational education for current and future health professionals, and supports advanced professional education and service development.
This layered approach allows the programme to move from understanding need, to developing education and support resources, to informing future recommendations for pancreatic cancer education, supportive care and service improvement.
Four-tier graphic wording:
Public awareness is a central part of NIPANC’s mission. This tier focuses on improving public knowledge and awareness of pancreatic cancer, including symptom recognition, help-seeking and engagement with accessible education.
This includes the QUB/NIPANC pancreatic cancer public awareness serious game, developed to support learning about pancreatic cancer in an engaging and accessible way. The programme also includes international adaptation work, including a doctoral project led by Guangyan Si (https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/guangyan-si/) focused on adapting and evaluating a pancreatic cancer awareness serious game for the public in Beijing.
This tier supports the wider goal of improving public understanding of pancreatic cancer and exploring how digital education can reach different communities and cultural contexts.
This tier focuses on understanding and responding to the experiences of people affected by pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer can have profound physical, emotional, practical and relational impacts for patients, carers, families and young people. Research is needed to understand these experiences and to inform future support.
Current doctoral and fellowship work includes:
This work is intended to inform future supportive care, psychosocial support, education and service development.
This tier focuses on ensuring that current and future health professionals have the essential knowledge, confidence and awareness needed to support people affected by pancreatic cancer. It is designed for undergraduate and pre-registration health professional students but also has relevance for qualified professionals who want an accessible introduction to pancreatic cancer care.
Current doctoral work led by Olivia Watson focuses on the development and evaluation of an interdisciplinary pancreatic cancer e-resource for health professional learners. This work aims to improve knowledge, confidence and preparedness in relation to pancreatic cancer, including recognition, communication, support needs, interdisciplinary care and the experiences of patients and families.
This tier is important because all health professionals, regardless of discipline or career stage, may encounter people affected by pancreatic cancer. Foundational education can support more informed, compassionate and responsive care.
This tier focuses on deeper professional learning, interdisciplinary practice and service development for qualified professionals and healthcare systems. It moves beyond foundational awareness to consider how pancreatic cancer care can be improved across teams, pathways and services.
The programme links with the Queen’s University Belfast accredited 20 CATS, 12-week online standalone module, Interdisciplinary Care of People with Pancreatic Cancer, which supports qualified professionals to develop a more integrated understanding of pancreatic cancer care across the continuum.
Developing work also includes a forthcoming doctoral project led by Grace Crolly Burton, commencing September 2026, focused on realist/service evaluation of pancreatic cancer services in Northern Ireland.This tier aims to support advanced professional learning, service understanding, interdisciplinary collaboration and future recommendations for improving pancreatic cancer care.
Academic Programme Lead: Dr Gary Mitchell, Reader (Education), Queen’s University Belfast.
The programme is developed in partnership with NIPANC and is shaped by doctoral and fellowship researchers, people with lived experience, family/carer contributors, healthcare professionals, academic supervisors and interdisciplinary collaborators. Academic and supervisory collaborators bring expertise in pancreatic cancer, psycho-oncology, supportive care, digital education, co-design, implementation, family/carer research and service evaluation.
Current academic and supervisory collaborators include Dr Gillian Prue, Dr Lisa Graham-Wisener, Dr Stephanie Craig and Dr Deirdre McGrath, alongside wider clinical, academic and lived-experience contributors involved across individual projects.
Across the four tiers, the programme is building an evidence-informed pathway for pancreatic cancer awareness, education, supportive care and service improvement. This includes public-facing awareness resources, research with people affected by pancreatic cancer and families, health professional education and service-level evaluation in Northern Ireland.
The long-term aim is to develop recommendations for tiered pancreatic cancer education and support across public, patient/family, student, professional and service levels.
The programme includes the first QUB/NIPANC serious game designed to raise public awareness of pancreatic cancer, a growing doctoral and fellowship cluster, peer-reviewed publications, digital education resources, professional education activity and international adaptation work.
Future plans include developing interdisciplinary collaboration across Northern Ireland, Ireland and wider European partners in pancreatic cancer supportive care, psychosocial research, education and service improvement. Existing links with Pancreatic Cancer Europe, where both NIPANC and Dr Gary Mitchell are full members, provide a platform for sharing learning, engaging with wider European priorities and exploring future collaborative work.
The programme aims to build a stronger evidence base for tiered pancreatic cancer education and support, including public awareness, patient and family support, health professional education, advanced professional development and service-level learning. This will support future funding applications, cross-border collaboration and European education-focused work, while retaining the programme’s core focus on supportive care, education, psychosocial experience and service development.
NIPANC and Queen’s University Belfast welcome interest from people affected by pancreatic cancer, family members, healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, students and organisations interested in research participation or collaboration aligned to the programme’s focus.
For further information, please contact NIPANC Executive Director Susan McLaughlin or Dr Gary Mitchell at Queen’s University Belfast.