The ARC South London is governed by an Executive, which is chaired by ARC director Professor Sir Graham Thornicroft and meets monthly. The Executive includes representatives from the ARC’s research themes and our collaborating organisations.

The Executive is accountable to the ARC South London Board, which is co-chaired by Dr Adrian McLachlan, Chair of Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group and Dr Leonie Penna, Chief Medical Officer at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The Board includes representatives from our collaborating organisations, Health Education England, local public health leads, and will include patient and service user representatives. The Board meets four times a year. Each year, the ARC submits a detailed report outlining its activities and progress to the NIHR.

Increasing diversity in the ARC’s governance structures

We published the ARC South London Involvement Strategy for 2019-2024, which was submitted to NIHR in March 2021. Equity, diversity, and inclusion was a central theme in the strategy, with the aim to work with diverse groups, particularly across the nine protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. The Act aims to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity. 

The Involvement Strategy stated that there would be patient, service user, carer, and community members from a wide range of groups on the ARC South London Board and Executive. This is an opportunity to increase the diversity of our membership and ensure diverse individuals and communities can comment on our research projects as well as propose new ideas for research.

Recruiting new members to the ARC Executive and Board

We want to recruit two new patient, service user, carer, and community members from diverse backgrounds and two representatives from community organisations specifically working with Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and people with disabilities, to be members of both the ARC Executive and Board. This will involve a commitment to attending the ARC’s monthly executive meetings lasting 90 minutes, and quarterly Board meetings, lasting two hours.

Public members and community organisations on the Executive and Board will be paid for their time.

  • Individual public members will be paid £50 per Executive meeting and £60 per Board meeting. This includes preparation time.
  • Community organisations will be paid £150 per Executive meeting and £180 per Board meeting. This fee recognises organisational costs and the expectation that community organisations will draw on the wider expertise of the organisation in the field of equality and diversity as this relates to the ARC's areas of research.

We currently expect all meetings to take place online, via Zoom or Microsoft teams.

We are looking for:

Diverse members of the public to apply who live or work in south London and for community organisations representing Black, Asian and minority groups, and those with disabilities, as these individuals and groups are under-represented on the ARC Executive and Board.

We are particularly interested in hearing from public members who have:

  • Good experience and knowledge of working with individuals and groups across the protected characteristics and have a good understanding of the health and social issues, inequalities, and discrimination these groups face
  • The ability and desire to contribute to discussions on different research topics across health and social care and to help shape research from a public, lived experience
  • Experience of contributing as a public member at a strategic level in health and social care delivery or research

We are particularly interested in hearing from community organisations who:

  • Have good experience of working with Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups or those with disabilities to address discrimination or health inequalities
  • Can bring a broader community organisational perspective to discussions on the wider issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion
  • Can attend both ARC Executive and Board meetings to help shape and contribute to research impacting these communities

Please note: to ensure continuity and accountability, we expect organisations to nominate an individual to attend the meetings on a regular basis and wish to pilot these community organisation positions for a year in the first instance to see how they might work best.

If you are interested in being involved as a public member, please complete Application Form A.

If you are interested in applying as a community organisation, please complete Application Form B.

Please return your forms to Hannah Dasch at email: hannah.dasch@kcl.ac.uk

The deadline for returning applications is Friday 8 October.