Ala Szczepura is Professor Emerita of Health Technology Assessment at Coventry University. She holds Honorary Chairs at Warwick University, the University of the West of England Bristol, and Plymouth University and is Visiting Professor at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. She has over forty years’ experience of interdisciplinary health services research with specific interests in: health and care technology assessment; re-design and assessment of services; and addressing population diversity for cost-effective care.

She has published 256 peer-reviewed scientific works including in the areas of healthcare innovation, self-management, cancer, renal care, diabetes, ageing care, and unobtrusive smart environments for independent living and, most recently unconscious gender bias in medicine. Her work is cited in 149 policy documents, with 736 further citations in five hundred other policy documents. In 2020, she was among the world’s top 2% most cited scientists. She has won over £35 million in research funding from NIHR, Wellcome, MRC, ESRC, Innovate UK, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, Skills for Care, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Industry. Her research involves collaborating closely with scientists, social-scientists, clinicians, end-users, policy makers, and technology developers.

She is a member of the Advisory Group for the Technology Assessment Reviews (TAR) for NICE, based in the Centre for Evidence and Implementation Science (CEIS), Birmingham University; and for the West Midlands Evidence Synthesis Group based in CEIS. Other roles include a member of the Vivensa Foundation (formerly Dunhill Medical Trust) Research Grants Committee, the Vivensa Academy Steering Group; the Board of International Somatic Practice and Chronic Pain Network (SPCPN); and the UK Higher Education Dementia Network (HEDN) Strategy Group. Previous roles include member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists’ Research Foundation Advisory Group; Vice-Chair of the Marie Curie Research Programme Funding Committee; Visiting Fellow St Hilda’s College Oxford University. Internationally, she was a founder member of the HTA International (HTAi) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Patient & Citizen Involvement in HTA and is currently a member of the HTAi Rare Disease Interest Group (RDIG) Knowledge Mobilisation Project.

CAREER HISTORY

Originally a scientist with a DPhil in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, previous academic posts were held at the Universities of Oxford, Manchester, the Open University, and Warwick. At Warwick, she was Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies in the Business School. She won ESRC funding to establish the UK Centre for Evidence in Ethnicity, Health and Diversity (CEEHD) jointly with De Montfort University. The resulting NHS Specialist Library for Ethnicity & Health was eventually incorporated into NHS Evidence under the direction of NICE. As a member of Warwick University’s Education Policy Group, she helped negotiate establishment of the joint Leicester-Warwick Medical School. Subsequently, Warwick established the first graduate-entry medical school in England. As a supporter of gender equality, she was involved in Warwick becoming the first medical school to gain an Athena SWAN Silver award.

While at Warwick, she was seconded to the Department of Health as an expert, working alongside Dr Henshall (Deputy Director of Research & Development), to help establish the NHS Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Research Programme. Following this she served as a member of the HTA Research Commissioning Board, the NHS Advisory Panel for Diagnostics and Imaging, the NHS Advisory Panel for Screening, and the Steering Group for the NHS Technology Horizon Scanning project. She has a long record of supporting the development of researchers, having sat on NIHR Award Panels at all levels (Post-Doctoral, Career Development & Senior Research Fellowships). She was also a member of the Department of Health’s very first Postdoctoral Nursing Fellowship Panel.

Following her retirement from Warwick Medical School, she accepted a part-time appointment at Coventry University. Here she was Inaugural Director of the Centre for Technology Enabled Health Research (CTEHR) in the Health Faculty. She then moved to Enterprise & Innovation to support Coventry’s £1m Data Driven Research & Innovation (DDRI) Initiative for Ageing. This Cross-Faculty Programme created the first 24/7 UK ‘living lab’ care home. A DDRI PhD programme evaluated robotics, digital health, well-being apps, and sensors in various care environments, and included joint research with UWE Bristol and the Bristol Robotics Lab. More recently, this research has extended to collaboration with Japan, exploring a new national policy of ‘Care Science’ and a network of care 'living labs’.

Throughout her career she has been a strong supporter of the role of women. In 2018, she was winner of the 'Services to Medicine' category in the First English Women's Awards.

Health technology assessment, emerging technological innovations, policy research

My research interests lie in the application of 'technology' to health and care.

• Technology - defined broadly to innovations to 'promote health, prevent and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation and long term care'. This might cover service reorganisation and quality improvement as well as AI and digital 'tech'.
• Assessment - evaluation of organisational impact and broader social and ethical implications of a new technology, as well as its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.
• Success - a multidisciplinary approach (working closely with scientists, clinicians, end-users, policy makers and technology developers) to the evaluation of new and emerging health and social care technologies.