In a series of events in the United Kingdom initially planned for the summer of 2020, the International Consortium for Communication in Healthcare (IC4CH) has formally welcomed two major research centres to its consortium membership. 

After a two-year delay, on 23 June 2022, the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics and the IOE International Office were delighted to celebrate UCL's membership of IC4CH.

IOE's Vice Dean, Health, Professor Jeff Bezemer and Vice Dean, International, Professor John O'Regan welcomed Professor Diana Slade, Director of the ANU Institute for Communication in Health Care and current lead partner of IC4CH, and Professor Olya Zayts from Hong Kong University's IC4CH partner, the Research and Impact Initiative on Communication in Healthcare.

The event, which was sponsored by IOE International and hosted by Dr Zsofia Demjen (Centre for Applied Linguistics) and the UCL Health Communication Network at IOE, concluded with a lecture by Professor Diana Slade on effective communication in hospitals, which you can watch online here.

Less than a week later, on 29 June 2022, Lancaster University celebrated the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Lancaster University and the Australian National University, and the inclusion of Lancaster’s ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science in IC4CH.

The Deputy Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University hosted a reception to welcome Professors Diana Slade and Paul Pickering from ANU, and Professor Olya Zayts from Hong Kong University.

The formalisation of ties between these groundbreaking research centres and the IC4CH represents a great and lasting step forward for international collaboration that translates cutting-edge research into best practice and training for safe and compassionate health care.