Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

25th Anniversary of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

For 25 years, the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing has been bringing together researchers, practitioners, policymakers and communities to tackle some of society's most pressing health and wellbeing challenges. Now, we invite you to celebrate this milestone and explore the future of interdisciplinary research.

Over four days, a series of exciting events will showcase the Institute's achievements, partnerships and vision for the future, featuring leading researchers, health professionals, community partners and innovators.

Celebration Event

Date: Monday, 9 November 2026 1pm - 4pm
Venue: Radisson Blu, Durham
Nibbles and drinks provided.

The Wolfson Research Institute is delighted to invite you to a special celebration marking its 25th anniversary.

This milestone event will bring together the VC, distinguished guests, former Directors, Fellows and Partners to celebrate a quarter century of interdisciplinary research excellence, innovation, and impact, and to reflect on the Institute’s achievements and future ambitions.

Register to attend here - Wolfson 25th Anniversary Celebrations - Launch – Fill in form

Your contributions have played an important role in shaping the Wolfson Research Institute, and it would be an honour to celebrate this occasion with you. This celebration event will be the start of a week of Wolfson events, please see below for more details.

25th Anniversary Celebration Week - Other Events

Fuse / NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North East North Cumbria Showcase event

10th November, 9.30- 12.30
Mountjoy Centre Event Space

The aim of the event is to showcase and celebrate the strengths of the health research and practice partnerships across our region, with a spotlight on Durham. The focus of the event will be to highlight the successful work and collaborations with Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC).

Sign up here - FUSE/NENC ARC Roadshow - Wolfson 25th Anniversary – Fill in form

ENTANGLED
How we might reshape our entanglement with the environment

10 November, 13:30 to 15:00PM

Mountjoy Centre Event Space

Join us for a lecture by Professor Brian Castellani (Wolfson Institute, DRMC, Department of Sociology) and respondents, Dr Anastasiya Halauniova (Living Soils, Department of Sociology) and Dr John Bothwell (JusTNOW, Department of Biosciences), for a discussion on the role of entanglement in addressing environmental health and just transitions.

Why are some of our most serious environmental problems so difficult to change, even when we know what needs to be done? One reason is entanglement. Ecological systems are interwoven with how we live, work, organise economies and imagine the future. Pollution, just transitions and ecological improvement are therefore inseparable from jobs, inequality, infrastructure and economic development. Changing one part inevitably puts pressure on others. That does not mean we cannot reshape our future. Drawing on the complexity sciences, humanities and visual arts, and the work my team and I are doing in South Africa, this lecture will explore how these entanglements form, why they persist, and how they might be disentangled and reorganised. The lecture will also feature Entangled, a sci-fi short film imagining an unfamiliar form of life arriving on Earth capable of repairing damaged environments, only to encounter the deeper social, economic, and cultural systems in which that damage is embedded. The lecture ends with a question for the respondents and audience: if environmental justice and wellbeing depend on how we are entangled with the world, how might we become entangled differently?

Health and AI: Shaping the Future of Healthcare
11th November 11am - 2pm (lunch provided)
Mountjoy event space

As part of the Wolfson Research Institute’s 25th anniversary programme, this panel will explore how artificial intelligence and digital technologies are transforming health research, clinical practice and patient care. Bringing together expertise from Computer Science, Engineering and the NHS, the discussion will consider current and emerging applications of AI in healthcare, as well as the practical, clinical and ethical challenges of translating research into safe, effective and useful real-world tools. The panel will highlight the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and look ahead to the opportunities for digital health and AI to shape the next generation of healthcare innovation.

11:00 Welcome and introduction: Amir Atapour-Abarghouei and Alan, the robot.
- 11:10 - 11.50 - Panel presentations

Julie Cox: The clinical and NHS perspective on AI
Raheleh Kafieh: AI applications in eye healthcare
James Liley: Predictive models and trustworthy AI in medicine
Noura Al-Moubayed: Emerging AI technologies and future opportunities
- 11:50– Moderated panel discussion
- 12:25 – Audience Q&A
- 12:45 – Networking lunch.
- 13:30 – Participants discussing challenges and collaboration opportunities
- 13:50 – Final reflections and closing

WRI and Health Justice
12th November 9.30 - 12 (lunch provided)
Mountjoy event space

This event will showcases some of the breadth of research in the University, from the explicitly political/policy through to inequalities and how they manifest in, for example, criminal justice and safeguarding.

Sign up here - Health Justice - Wolfson 25th Anniversary Celebrations – Fill in form

Governing the Health Workforce Across Time: From Forecasting to Capability and Learning Abstract Health workforce planning faces a structural problem of time.

Cris Scotter, Strategic leader specializing in health workforce strategy, WHO.
12th November 12 - 2.30
Mountjoy event space

Decisions on education, workforce supply, service redesign, prevention and technology may take a decade or more to mature, yet they are governed through much shorter political and financial cycles. Treating workforce planning primarily as a forecasting problem therefore risks projecting forward the system we already have rather than building the one we need.

Drawing on normative backcasting, capability and complexity, this talk explores how health workforce planning can sustain long-term direction across short political cycles while adapting as circumstances change. Planning begins with the health outcomes and service model we want to achieve, identifies what the system must be capable of doing, and works backwards to the workforce, technology, organisation and governance required to deliver it.

Informed by years of engagement with healthcare systems around the world, including the NHS, this talk will ground these ideas in the practical realities of workforce planning and reform. Because the future cannot be predicted precisely, implementation must then operate as a learning system: testing, learning and adapting while maintaining long-term direction. The challenge is therefore not to predict the workforce of the future, but to build the governance and capability to create it.