New Poverty and Health Inequalities collaboration co-designed by ACRC PhD students

The Centre for Homelessness and Inclusion Health will host a two-year collaboration aiming to close the ‘knowledge-to-action’ gap on poverty and health inequalities in Scotland’s communities.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) has awarded a £9,785 Collaboration Grant to support the development of a collaborative and community-led network, which centres lived experience, shares practical resources and expertise, and builds capacity to take action on poverty and health inequalities among students, researchers, community organisations and the general public.


The interdisciplinary project will be led by Professor Sarah Johnsen (Director, Centre for Homelessness and Inclusion Health) with two co-investigators from the Usher Institute: Dr Livvy Swann (Senior Clinical Research Fellow, Centre for Medical Informatics) and Dr Carey Lunan (Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer and GP Chair of Scottish Deep End Project). The project will also support early-career researchers, with two ACRC PhD students, Emilie McSwiggan and Emily Adams, forming part of the core project team. Voluntary Health Scotland, the Community Health Exchange, and the University of Edinburgh’s Community Team are also key partners.


This project builds upon conversations initiated at last year’s Poverty and Health Inequalities Forum, co-organised by the project team together with Emeritus Professor Stewart Mercer, and made possible thanks to seed-funding from the Usher Institute Small Grants fund and the ACRC. The Forum brought together more than 100 people from diverse sectors – spanning community and voluntary organisations, academia, government, health and social care – to explore the challenge of poverty and health inequalities in Scotland. The clear takeaway message from Forum attendees was a desire to stay connected, share learning and, above all, focus on practical action that makes a difference in redressing health inequalities.

This funding will enable us to establish long-term partnerships with community organisations and meaningfully involve people with lived experience of poverty and social exclusion in the planning, design, and delivery of initiatives with potential to redress extreme health inequalities. I’m delighted that this RSE Collaboration Grant will help us translate what is significant appetite for change into action

Professor Sarah Johnsen

For now, the first steps are to reconnect with the network of staff, students, and external partners who attended the last Forum, or who share an interest in poverty and health inequalities – to share more information about the project and to explore immediate opportunities for collaboration. The project team will also work with partners to set up a steering group, involving advisers with lived experience as well as representatives of community organisations.
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For more information about prior Poverty and Health Inequalities work, please see Poverty and Health Inequalities Forum 2025. To get in touch, please email Emilie McSwiggan (project manager; emilie.mcswiggan@ed.ac.uk).


For more information about the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s grant awards, please see this article: RSE Spring 2026 Research Awards Recipients


Note: As this is an interdisciplinary project with team members from different parts of the University of Edinburgh, this blog may appear in several locations on the University website.

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