This project investigates current attempts at the Charité hospital in Berlin to strengthen the professional career identity of nurses – and thus their overall wellbeing – by offering them more opportunities for pursuing an academic career path. Besides interviews and participatory workshops with multiple stakeholders, we aim to develop accessible science communication to address insecurities that come along with the redefinition of professional roles.
This project investigates institutional efforts of the Charité hospital to increase the wellbeing of nurses by providing more opportunities for professional identity growth through academic career paths. The project will study the feasibility of these institutional efforts and to work innovatively towards systemic organizational change by involving multiple stakeholders throughout the process. Accessible science communication will play a central role towards this aim.
As a first step, we explored the challenges and enablers for the adequate integration of academic nurses in daily work routines. For this, we conducted 26 interviews between September 2024 and January 2025 with different stakeholders, including academic and non-academic nurses, as well as doctors and care personnel in leadership positions.
Next to structural barriers at the policy level, the interviews revealed a range of historically, culturally or organizationally grounded assumptions among different stakeholders that often make it difficult for academic nurses to actively apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills in their everyday work activities. At the same time, interviewees also noted positive developments, leaders as role models in the change process, best practice inspirations from other countries and the overall endorsement of interprofessional collaborations within the hospital.
Going further, in fall 2025, we aim to conduct participatory workshops with the above-mentioned different stakeholders, while also inviting additional participants to broaden the outreach. Following the workshops, we consider developing non-traditional science communication such as video clips and science cartoons that address the following question for different target groups: “Academic career paths for nurses – what does that mean for me”? The aim is to support the change process by actively addressing legitimate insecurities that come along with the redefinition of professional roles.
This research is a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin.