The Starworks Network is seeking Expert Advisers from the Prosthetic world
What is Starworks?
We are a young people’s prosthetics research collaboration who bring children and their families together with key opinion leaders from the NHS, Industry, Clinical Academia and leading National Research Centres with capabilities in child prosthetics.
We are a collaboration which aims to increase research across the system in order to accelerate the translation of new inventions and developments in child prosthetics into everyday use. This initiative is centred on the needs of children and their families as well as the NHS and will ensure there is the ideal balance of ‘clinical pull’ and ‘technical push’ to create an energetic environment in which to innovate and to partner with industry.
What will the network do?
Our network approach will ensure that we have the correct balance of expertise dedicated to supporting innovation in the field of prosthetics for children. Our objectives are:
- To identify and validate unmet needs for children with limb loss from all stakeholders
- To share ideas or requests for collaboration from across the network
- To establish collaborations and facilitate new projects
- To work across all stakeholders, industry, the NIHR and NHS infrastructure to develop and evaluate new technology in this field
- To help shape the national agenda on the importance of new innovation in this field by influencing future funding calls and direction
Does this network include children and young people?
Yes, elevating the voice of children and young people is core to our values and central to our future direction. We have created the Starworks Ambassador Scheme to reward and incentivise the participation of children who use prosthetics, and their siblings, in research activities. Each activity, such as completing surveys, attending workshops, taking part in competitions, reviewing new innovations, and so on, can all earn the children stickers, which add up over time to earn them certificates and vouchers. This will allow us to work with children and young people to share ideas, ask for opinions and co-produce new innovation and developments with them.
Who are you looking for?
People who work in this field and would be in a position to guide and advise the network.
What is the commitment?
There is no commitment unless you want to be involved. All that will happen is we will contact you when the network is approached for your opinion, also, if you have something to share from your area of expertise, we would be happy to support this for you.
For further information, you can take a look at the new look website coming soon, follow us on Twitter @starworks_cp, or email us.
If you are interested, all we ask at this point is if you would complete this very short questionnaire, simply to understand your areas of interest and location https://forms.gle/HS41hZhY4bhmT3E67