Prof. David J. Wright Appointed Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacy

We are delighted to announce that Prof. David J. Wright has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacy (ISSN: 2226-4787). With an extensive background in scientific research and publishing, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to this prestigious role.

Prof. David J. Wright is a highly regarded educator, having received Chancellor’s Awards for teaching excellence at two of his previous institutions. He currently serves as Professor of Health Services Research and Head of the School of Healthcare at the University of Leicester, UK, and also holds a position as Professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Bergen, Norway.

He has been awarded research funding totalling over GBP 9 million as principal investigator, authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications, and successfully supervised 17 PhD students to completion. His leadership includes chairing several national reviews in pharmacy practice and contributing to the development of three national guidelines for individuals with dysphagia. In addition, he has published three books and contributed chapters to two others.

Prof. Wright’s research led to the creation of the resource www.swallowingdifficulties.com, and he also developed “EpilepsyMeds”, a free, interactive app that informs prescribers about the contents of anti-seizure medicines.

The following is a Q&A with Prof. David J. Wright, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views on the research field and on open access publishing:

The pharmacy journal provides a quick and efficient route to publication for pharmacy academics at all levels who are interested in sharing their new knowledge internationally in a timely manner within a high-quality publication. As one of the journal’s editors for a number of years, I have enjoyed reading the wide variety of research that is submitted and was therefore delighted to be asked to take this journal forward as Editor-in-Chief from here.

I would like to see the journal raise its impact factor year on year and achieve this through supporting the pharmacy research community in its endeavour to develop and promote the role of pharmacy in the delivery of high-quality patient care.

This, I believe, can be achieved by encouraging pharmacy researchers to adopt international guidance on the development and evaluation of complex interventions within their approach to pharmacy research. This would increase the use of theory to underpin the development of interventions, fully optimise the use of proof of concept and feasibility studies to improve research quality and success, and result in the better use of qualitative research to understand the problems that we want to solve before we develop interventions.

The future of pharmacy research involves moving away from the traditional test and measure experimental approach to developing and evaluating interventions, which is underpinned by the medical model for testing drugs and surgery. In designing and developing new pharmacy services and interventions that are people-focused, we need to recognise that both healthcare professionals and patients do not operate in such a linear manner, with their behaviour being heavily context dependent. Consequently, as pharmacy researchers, we need to spend far more time understanding the underpinning problems that we want to solve, listening to patients and healthcare professionals, and testing our ideas iteratively before we deliver any form of trial. A more considered approach to service development will result in better quality service design, greater likelihood of success in research, and ultimately better patient care. It will also move knowledge forward regarding pharmacy in a more consistent manner.

I think the argument for open access literature was won a number of years ago. Within the UK at least, government bodies that fund research routinely require that it is made open access to increase the likelihood of achieving positive societal impact from their funding. Making knowledge more freely available removes barriers for those researchers operating in less resource-rich environments and thus ensures that new knowledge is more openly shared and benefits everyone more equally.

We wish Prof. David J. Wright every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.