Research Community

The Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) Research Centre is an independent centre funded by Forces in Mind Trust and run by a consortium of RAND Europe and King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College London. The centre provides an accessible and authoritative evidence base exploring the transition from military to civilian life, to inform policy and practice affecting ex-Service personnel and their families in the UK. It also functions as a community hub for the UK Armed Forces research community, connecting researchers, policy makers, and service providers, to support the forging of joined up working and collaboration, and build pathways to impact. This is achieved through various outputs, including but not limited to, a accessible online research repository, informative themed research and policy summaries and primary research exploring key themes impacting the UK ex-Service community. 

The King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) is the leading civilian UK centre of excellence for military health research providing much-needed evidence on the health and well-being of Serving and ex-Serving personnel and their families. KCMHR’s research relates to conflict and health, occupational psychiatry, personnel issues and social policy. Their research is conducted in four key areas, Serving personnel, ex-Serving personnel, military families (including those of ex-Serving personnel) and interventions.

Linda Slapakova is a Senior Analyst at RAND where she leads work on the Defence workforce and Armed Forces Community. Her work cuts across personnel policy (particularly understanding future personnel policy challenges, incentivisation, career and talent management) and understanding the experiences and support needs of Veterans and military families. In the latter category, her recent projects have focused on understanding the financial stability of military families, the lived experience of military-to-civilian transition among Veteran cohorts with protected or minority characteristics, and implementation of the Armed Forces Covenant. She is a primarily qualitative researcher and her research interests mainly sit within the field of military sociology and applied policy research.

Professor Lisa Scullion is Professor of Social Policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Inclusive Society at the University of Salford. Lisa has delivered over 60 research projects, with a commitment to the importance of qualitative inquiry for shaping policy and practice. Lisa’s work focuses specifically on understanding the impact of UK welfare reforms. This includes leading a ground-breaking five-year FiMT funded study called Sanctions, Support & Service Leavers. This is the first in depth UK research to explore Veterans’ experiences of the social security system and has been supporting the Department for Work and Pensions in developing their work related to the Armed Forces community. Lisa is a member of the Ministry of Defence Recovery Expert Advisory Board and the Office for Veterans Affairs Academic Advisory Board, and the FiMT Research Centre Advisory Board. 

Professor Nicola Fear holds a Chair in Epidemiology at the Academic Department of Military Mental Health and is Director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College London and one of the Directors of the Forces in Mind Trust Research Centre. Nicola has worked in the field of occupational health throughout her career, including within the UK Ministry of Defence as their Consultant Epidemiologist. She trained in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford, from where she obtained her doctorate. Professor Fear is one of the Principal Investigators on the KCMHR military cohort study and leads several studies looking at the impact of military service on families. 

As a social scientist within Robert Gordon University, Professor Zoe Morrison worked to further the application of business and management studies to policy driven change programmes. Her work aimed to inform leadership and human resource management theory through understanding individual experiences of change, including changing expectations of work, careers and employment, and adoption and implementation of technological innovation. Her interpretivist research agenda was curiosity inspired and theoretically driven, drawing on the sociology of work and organisations, and military and family sociologies. Zoe worked in three areas: health, defence and carbon emissions mitigation, often referred to as decarbonisation. Zoe has now moved role to be the Lead Specialist in Culture and Experience at NHS Grampian.