Dr Rebecca Hardwick is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Realist Research and Evaluation Learning Initiative, at the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Australia. Prior to this she was a PhD student and Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter Medical School. Her PhD research used a realist approach to explore how third sector organisations use research and other kinds of knowledge in their work, and she remains interested in this field of research, following a long career working for third sector healthcare organisations.
Whilst at Exeter, she was co-convenor of the Realist Hive, a realist research methods interest group and blog. Since moving to Darwin, she has been involved in conducting realist evaluations of international development projects and programmes as well as teaching evaluation and realist methodology on the MSc in Public Policy course.
She has been lead author on four papers and co-author on four more, and has published in Implementation Science, International Journal for Integrated Care, Voluntary Sector Review, Quality in Primary Care, Systematic Reviews and Evaluation, and also co-author of a chapter in Doing Realist Research, by SAGE publications and co-author on the Public Health England Practice Resource Preventing Suicide in Public Places. She has presented her work and led workshops at conferences in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Her research methods expertise and interest include realist research, evaluation and review, qualitative research and ethnography. Her research topic interests include research use and knowledge mobilisation, third sector research and evaluation, patient and public involvement, international development, gender studies, public health, mental health, suicide prevention, and health services research more generally.