Worldwide healthcare faces challenges because of ageing populations, increasing prevalence of chronic illness and greater emphasis on self-care. This increasing complexity demands that today’s healthcare is effective, evidence-based and cost-effective.

There is growing evidence for the impact of leadership in improving patient and health care outcomes. Postdoctoral and doctorrally prepared nurses have an important role in developing nursing and healthcare, by conducting research, translating research evidence into clinical practice and in furthering the development as well as shaping the nature of the nursing discipline.

Recently, various global reports acknowledged the shortage of highly educated nurses and call for the strengthening of leadership of nurses in all arenas of health care. Although the need for educational programs focusing on leadership and professional development for nurses working in academia has been emphasized and various leadership and mentoring programs have been identified, none of them has focused on leadership and professional development in doctoral nursing students and postdoctoral nurses in Europe.

Consortium

In order to strengthen the leadership competencies and professional development of postdoctoral nurses and doctoral nursing students, the Nurse-Lead consortium, consisting of the University of Iceland,(Iceland), University Medical Centrum Utrecht (the Netherlands), Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), Nursing school of Lisbon (Portugal), University of Turku (Finland), Vilnius University (Lithuania) and Elevate BV (the Netherlands) collaborated and applied for an Erasmus+ grant which was awarded to the consortium. For more information on participants in the consortium, please go the Consortium page.

Objectives >

The project entitled “Nursing Leadership Educational Program for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Nurses” or “Nurse-Lead” has the following objectives:

• To stimulate the future generation of leaders in nursing education and research encouraging high performing, education research environments;
• To train and educate doctoral nursing students and postdoctoral nurses focusing on high quality education and research, as shown by substantial achievements in education, research, international collaborations, impacting patients, families and communities within Europe.

Outputs

The project will develop several outputs during the lifetime of the project:

• Online educational program for postdoctoral nurses;
• Online educational program doctoral nursing students;
• Competency profile for postdoctoral nurses;
• Massive Open Online Course (MOOC);
• Implementation and exploitation of Nurse-Lead;
• Business model for continuation and sustainability of the program;
• Research studies investigating Nurse-Lead;
• Nurse-Lead symposium.