Director of Healthier Futures
Professor Dame Nicky Cullum
Nicky was appointed Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work in September 2011. She became Head of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work in August 2015 and then Head of the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work in August 2016 after a restructure. In August 2019 she stood down as Head of Division in order to lead the new NIHR ARC-GM.
Nicky trained as a nurse in Liverpool, UK and was awarded a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Liverpool in 1990. She gained postdoctoral research experience at the University of Surrey, UK, in the Department of Health-funded Nursing Practice Research Unit, and the Department of Nursing at the University of Liverpool. Nicky was at the University of York between 1994 and 2011 where worked in the Centre for Health Economics (1994 – 1996) and then the Department of Health Sciences (where she was Head of Research 2007 – 2011).
Nicky was made a Dame for services to nursing research and wound care, in the Queen's Birthday Honours, 2013. She was an Inaugural NIHR Senior Investigator (2008 – 2012, renewed 2013) and was made a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2012. She was awarded the Anne Anderson Award by the Cochrane Collaboration in 2016 and the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel Achievement Award for contributions to evidence based medicine in 2006.
Nicky has served on many funding panels including the NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Commissioning Board (2003 – 2008), the Medical Research Council Health Services and Public Health Board (2003 – 2007) and NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research Sub-Panels (2009 to 2017).
Nicky was also a founding member of the Cochrane Collaboration and led the Cochrane Wounds Group from 1995 to 2023. In 2018 she was elected to Cochrane's Governing Board and served until the end of 2021.