Alison Steven PhD, BSc(Hons), MSc, PGCRM, RN is Professor of Research in Nursing and Health Professions education at Northumbria University UK, and visiting professor at the University of Genoa Italy. She has over 20 years’ experience in Nursing and Health professions research.
Her work concerns the enhancement of safety and quality in professional practice through a focus on 3 areas of research: health professions education and learning; staff health and wellbeing; the embedding of skills, knowledge and innovations in practice.
Prof Steven developed the notion of ‘Emotional safety for learning’ from a series of research studies and first used this term in a 2014 paper based on a UK wide patient safety learning study. Since then she has further elaborated the concept of ‘Emotional safety for learning’ through national and international studies, papers and a co-authored book chapter in the 2019 ‘Routledge international handbook of Nurse Education’.
Prof Steven has led or been involved in over 30 funded projects, including leading the 5 country ‘Sharing learning from practice to improve patient safety’ project (SLIPPS) funded by the European union. She has published widely and undertaken research across a spectrum of settings, and in 2014 was awarded the British Medical Association Joan Dawkins research award. She supervises a range of doctorates and is Secretary for the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing European region workforce committee.
