ABSTRACT
The difficulty often is that researchers based solely in academic institutions may be too remote from practice, and constrained by the pressures of academic life, e.g. the need to publish constantly to boost their university’s research ratings. Improving services on the ground is simply not their first priority. Starting in 2003, Macmillan started testing a novel approach to these issues by forming the Macmillan Palliative and Cancer Care Research Collaborative (MacPaCC). In general, academics and clinicians can be quite different types of people, with contrasting senses of urgency around healthcare improvement. Academics typically want to follow rigorous scientific procedures and get all the data collected and analysed before drawing conclusions or recommendations. A memorable name for a new community of influence can help to create a sense of an established group, something that people can ‘point to’. A capacity to collaborate and influence depends crucially on being able to develop and nurture relationships.
