Professor Katrina Bannigan gives our 2024 Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture

Katrina is a recognised leader of research within and beyond the profession with an outstanding portfolio. Notably, she played a pivotal role in developing the first research priorities setting exercise in 2007. As the Chair of the Research and Development Board for the College of Occupational Therapists she established the RCOT Research Foundation. Katrina considers this achievement as one of her proudest, underlining her significant role in growing and evolving the profession in the UK. She has consistently published research, since the completion of her PhD 19 years ago, with the quantity of her publications increasing as her role has become more senior, creating a highly cited portfolio. 

She has an H index of 15 (indicating that at least 15 of her research papers have been cited by other researchers a minimum of 15 times each) and has published 52 peer-reviewed papers in journals from 1997–2022. This includes one of the first systematic reviews published within occupational therapy. Katrina has given 135 conference presentations, highlighting her role in sharing research, actively participating in discussions and driving forward the profession’s evidence base and research efforts. Katrina has also been awarded a total of £639,250 in research grants spanning topic areas including anxiety in Parkinson’s, homelessness and children and young people’s mental health. She has an accomplished record of research collaborations and outcomes.  

Katrina has applied her research expertise to the advancement  of education in occupational therapy, both at pre-registration and post registration level, with a significant contribution to doctoral-level education, as a director of studies and an external examiner. She has been at the forefront of integrating research into curriculum design through programme re-approval events and the development of the highly cited ‘Model of professional thinking’ (Bannigan and Moore, 2009). Katrina has been invited to contribute to book chapters and editorial teams of influential textbooks such as 'Creek’s Occupational Therapy in Mental Health' (2014). This reflects the profession’s high regard of her. Katrina has also created an online forum to nurture scholarly writing (@otwg_gcu) as a central part of occupation therapy practice open to all levels and stages within the profession. She has also been instrumental in advancing partnerships with local NHS Board areas.

Currently, Professor Katrina Bannigan holds several key roles:

• Honorary Professor at the University of Plymouth since 2022
• Professor of Occupational Therapy at Glasgow Caledonian University since 2021
• Core team member at the University of Plymouth Centre for Innovations in Health and Social Care, designated as a Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence since 2019.

The lecture is a memorial to Elizabeth Casson (1881–1954) in honour of her contributions to the profession of occupational therapy. The first woman to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Bristol in 1929, Elizabeth Casson specialised in psychiatry and introduced occupational therapy to England, setting up the first school of occupational therapy, Dorset House, in Bristol. 

We award  the lectureship to an RCOT member whose peers consider them to have made and be making a significant contribution to the profession’s development. 

See our previous Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture speakers