Dr Petra Makela

Assistant Professor

School: Communities and Education

I am a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow in Community Wellbeing, a social scientist, and GMC-registered physician working across medical sociology, health services research and implementation science. I am a methodologist with the NIHR Research Support Service hub delivered by Newcastle University, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration, an editorial board member of Sociological Research Online, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My research grew directly out of clinical practice. As a rehabilitation physician in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, I worked with people living with life-altering diagnoses, where recovery turns on relationships and social circumstances as much as on the physical, and on people's own agency. That same concern drew me to clinical work with people seeking sanctuary, which continues through the NGO Medical Justice. Witnessing how deeply services shape the lives of people in vulnerable positions, and how often their needs and knowledge go unrecognised, drew me from individual care into medical sociology, through research posts at the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

My work now sits at the intersection of migration health, implementation science, and participatory health research. Across very different settings, I study how people who are seldom heard in research and policy exercise agency under constraint, and what has to change for their knowledge to count. My methods are narrative and participatory, and I develop innovative approaches, including the use of existing media as data, to access experience that conventional qualitative research cannot.

This work has produced methods and tools taken up in practice. As Principal Investigator on a Health Foundation award, I led the codesign and evaluation, with Bridges Self-Management, of a novel self-management intervention for people after brain injury that is now used in UK and international health services. I also led the development of SPIRIT-ME, a framework for academic–policy engagement now in use across NIHR Applied Research Collaborations, and I have led evaluation and methods workstreams within national studies of health services and the care workforce.

My current research develops participatory and creative methods with people from sanctuary-seeking backgrounds, and I am editing a special issue on inclusive methods in the sociology of wellbeing. I contribute to national work on the mental health of people seeking sanctuary, including a Home Office standards group.

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD and professional-doctorate students working on migration, health and inclusion, participatory and creative methods, and the sociology of marginalised health needs.

Email Petra

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My research interests include:

Complex intervention development, implementation and evaluation, particularly participatory and theory-informed approaches
Knowledge mobilisation and the conditions under which academic–policy engagement widens, or narrows, whose knowledge counts
Participatory, inclusive and innovative methods with people who are seldom heard in research, including creative and media-based approaches
Health, mental health and 'trauma-informed' practice with people seeking sanctuary
Agency, identity and self-management among people living with life-altering conditions
Integration of health and social care, and the workforce that sustains it

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD and professional-doctorate applicants working in these or related areas.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Temporising refugee protection: mental health and human rights consequences of UK asylum and immigration policy changes, Crowley, G., Makela, P., Hassan, R., Pillay, M., Schleicher, T., Sen, P., Katona, C. 8 Sep 2026, In: Medicine, Science and the Law
Invisible skills, unequal burdens: a sociological agenda for recognising emotional labour in participatory research, McEwan, K., Makela, P., Cheetham, M. 16 Jul 2026, In: Sociological Research Online
Transforming Research through Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Public Involvement and Community Engagement, Al Haj Moussa, F., Hart, C., Makela, P. 24 Mar 2026, Public Involvement and Community Engagement in Higher Education Institutions: A Critical Reader, Emerald Publishing
The Identity Work of Torture Scars, Mäkelä, P. 1 Sep 2025, In: Sociological Research Online
A modified action framework to develop and evaluate academic-policy engagement interventions, Mäkelä, P., Boaz, A., Oliver, K. 1 Dec 2024, In: Implementation Science
The Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) programme in England: a mixed methods evaluation, Makela, P., Boaz, A., Oliver, K. 1 Feb 2026, In: Evidence and Policy
Coproducing a film resource for asylum seekers in the UK—A field reflection, Mäkelä, P., Given-Wilson, Z., Al Berkdar, K., Aljumma, Z., Mostafanejad, R. 1 Jun 2024, In: Journal of Refugee Studies
Factors influencing the implementation of early discharge hospital at home and admission avoidance hospital at home: a qualitative evidence synthesis, Wallis, J., Shepperd, S., Mäkelä, P., Xi, H., Tripp, E., Gearon, E., Disher, G., Buchbinder, R., O'Connor, D. 5 Mar 2024, In: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Innovative and Inclusive Methods in Sociology of Wellbeing 2026
Editorial work: Journal of Creative Research Methods (Journal) 2026

PGR Supervision