Nadia Bashir

Nadia Bashir is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University with over 20 years of experience in qualitative research. She specializes in engaging participants from vulnerable and seldom-heard groups, including people with multiple and complex needs, young people with learning disabilities/difficulties, and people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

Her current roles include community capacity building lead on a £10m UKRI-funded Centre for Collaboration in Community Connectedness (C4) and co-production lead for a five-year £5m NIHR-funded Wakefield Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC). She recently managed the evaluation of Humber Learning Consortium's This-Ability programme (2018-2024), co-producing research with practitioners and young people with disabilities.

Nadia's research expertise centers on co-production in research and evaluation, methodological approaches for engaging seldom-heard groups, and researching lived experiences of marginalized populations, particularly BAME experiences of multiple disadvantage. She has over 10 years of experience designing and delivering Peer/Community Researcher training to over 20 cohorts.

Her publication record shows a strong emphasis on community-based participatory research, with recent work focusing on culturally sensitive approaches to engage marginalized populations, social prescribing, community connectedness, and addressing health and social disparities.

Nadia actively supervises postgraduate students, currently guiding Natasha Cullen's research on creative health interventions for minority ethnic, disabled and LGBTQ+ groups. Previously, she supervised Abigail Woodward (2016-2020) on informal support networks amongst Pakistani Muslims in deprived areas of Sheffield.

She has established significant collaborations with major organizations including the National Health Service (NHS), the Big Lottery Fund, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), demonstrating her ability to translate research into practical applications that benefit community organizations and policymakers.