Our governance structure reflects the collaborative spirit of the Consortium, bringing together researchers, healthcare professionals, community partners and people with lived experience to help shape and guide our work to improve outcomes and reduce maternity inequalities. Our leadership and governance groups play a key role in shaping the future direction of the Consortium.
The Consortium is co-ordinated through teams at the University of Birmingham and Newcastle University, which provide overall programme management and financial oversight across the Consortium’s research and capacity development activities.
Leadership is shared across our Research Themes, Workstreams and Core Functions, creating a connected and collaborative approach to decision-making, delivery and innovation. Together, these groups help set priorities, monitor progress and ensure that our research remains focused on making a meaningful difference to women, babies and families affected by maternity inequalities.
Community voices are embedded throughout our governance, ensuring that lived experience, community priorities and partnership working remain central to everything we do. This helps us deliver research that is relevant, inclusive, and capable of creating lasting change.
Executive Group
The Executive Group makes high level decisions about the direction, delivery and oversight of the Consortium. It is co-chaired by Professor Judith Rankin and Professor Joht Chandan and provides leadership for the Consortium. Members are responsible for making financial decisions and ensuring the Consortium runs effectively. It approves plans for research delivery and capacity-building, checks progress against key milestones, manages risks, and deals with any issues. It also makes sure different areas of work are well coordinated.
The Group approves major partnerships and reports on progress to NIHR and the Department of Health and Social Care through the NIHR Inequalities Challenge Delivery Group.
Capacity Development Group
The Capacity Development Leads group oversees the management and delivery of the Consortium’s Capacity Development programme. It is chaired by Professor Judith Rankin. Capacity Development focuses on building the next generation of maternity inequalities researchers and building capabilities of existing researchers. It will provide training opportunities, such as PhD studentships and post-doctoral fellowships, to bring new researchers into maternity inequalities research and strengthen the skills of existing maternity inequalities researchers.
Research Leads Group
The Research Leads Group is chaired by Professor Joht Chandan. It oversees whether the research of the Consortium is progressing as planned, whether there are any barriers or risks to delivery, and whether the work is likely to make a meaningful difference. It is also responsible for horizon scanning for opportunities to apply for additional leveraged funding to builds on the work of the Consortium