Following Research Week (9–12 September), the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) is delighted to share the winning entries of the 2025 Research Poster Competition.

Now in its fifth year, the competition celebrates the building and mobilisation of evidence to inform practice in applied health and social care. Over the past six years, these projects have contributed significantly to research capacity building—an essential part of the researcher journey within ARC KSS—and have helped shape the future of applied research across the region.

Researchers from across Kent, Surrey and Sussex—including academics, healthcare professionals, and those working in public health, social care and social work—were invited to submit posters showcasing their work. All entries were judged by attendees of the in-person research symposium held at the University of Sussex on Friday 12 September.

Following 31 submissions, the ARC KSS Academy were pleased to award the following:

🏆 Poster Prize Winners

Winner:
Matthew Sanderson, Sussex MSK Health
Poster title: Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: An Audit of Patient Rehabilitation in Sussex

Runner-Up:
Devyn Glass, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Sussex
Poster title: Co-designing a community-led, task-sharing model for youth mental health care

Highly Commended:
Ethel Carboni Jardim, Advanced Practice Physiotherapist, PhD Candidate, University of Kent
Poster title: Living Well with Chronic Pain

🗣️ ViPER Session Winners

Five poster entrants were selected to present their work during the symposium’s ViPER session. The audience judged and voted for their favourite presentations.

ViPER Winner:
Katherine Buckeridge, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, PhD Candidate University of Kent
Poster title: Development of a parent-reported communication outcome measure for non-speaking children with neurodisability

ViPER Runner-Up:
James Baker, The Carer’s Centre, East Sussex
Poster title: Male carers’ voices in East Sussex: An exploration into the barriers to recognition, masculinity, and the perceptions of talking therapies

🎓 ViPER Entrants

We also commend the following presenters for their valuable contributions:

Prize winner, Mathew Sanderson said:

“I was very pleased (and pleasantly surprised) to have won the poster competition. The event offered a great opportunity to showcase some of the exciting research that is being done within health and social care across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and I'm extremely grateful to have had the chance to attend. I also look forward to attending again in the future, with the hope of sharing the findings from the next stage of my project. "

Dr Julie MacInnes, ARC KSS Capacity Building Lead, said:

“We would like to congratulate all the researchers who entered this year’s research poster competition. The symposium audience commented on the very high standard and reflected the quality of research taking place across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and its potential for making a real difference to patients, families and the wider community.

"We would like to thank everyone that took part and invite you to take a look at all the entries on our website. 

 

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