Participants wanted for research project on organisational wellbeing in veterinary workplaces

The below news update has been provided by our 2025 Mind Matters Impact Grant recipients, Professor Elinor O’Connor and Dr Kevin Teoh.

The University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) and Birkbeck, University of London are undertaking a research project on organisational stress-management and wellbeing initiatives in the UK veterinary sector.

Many stress-management initiatives aim to develop workers’ ability to cope with stress; an example is mindfulness. In contrast, organisational wellbeing initiatives are those that target sources of stress at work by changing how work is arranged or managed; examples might include changes to rota systems, workload management strategies, or efforts to improve communication or support within teams. The focus of this project is on organisational wellbeing initiatives with the aim of identifying the principles of effective organisational stress management in the specific context of veterinary work. 
 
The study is being conducted by Prof Elinor O’Connor, Professor of Work Psychology at AMBS, and Dr Kevin Teoh, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck. We are seeking examples of organisational stress management and wellbeing initiatives that have been implemented in veterinary workplaces. If you are currently working or have worked in the UK veterinary sector and have been involved in implementing and/or participating in an organisational wellbeing initiative in the past three years, we would be pleased to hear from you. People working in any role in the veterinary sector can participate in the study (e.g. clinical staff, animal care assistants, receptionists etc). 
 
Participating in the study will involve an individual interview, which will be conducted online. The interview will take about an hour and will be held at a time convenient to you. Participation in the study will be confidential. The research project has been approved by the University of Manchester’s Research Ethics Committee. 
 
If you are interested in participating in this study, please email [email protected] for further details. 

Could you be our next MMI grant recipient? If you’ve got an idea for a veterinary mental health research project, we would love to hear from you. 
 
Our £5,000 Discovery Grant is perfect for postgraduate or early career researchers looking to kick-start a small-scale study, while our £15,000 Impact Grant is aimed at more established researchers working on more substantial/medium-sized projects. However, both grants are open to researchers at any stage of their career. Applications are open until 11:59pm on 22 March 2026 - learn more and find out how to submit your application here on the MMI website.