Dr Nuno Tavares

Nuno joined the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey in February 2026. He is a registered nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and holds a PhD in Health Sciences from the University of Southampton, a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education from the University of Portsmouth, and is a Fellow of Advance HE.

Nuno has over a decade of experience in health sciences research and nursing education, having worked previously as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth and as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow funded by NIHR ARC Wessex and the Alzheimer's Society. His academic career has been shaped by a consistent commitment to research that centres the lived experience of patients and carers, and to teaching that is innovative, evidence-informed, and clinically grounded.

His work focuses on two interconnected areas:

Long-term conditions, dementia and self-management — Nuno leads a programme of research focused on understanding and improving the lived experience of people living with long-term conditions in the community, with a particular emphasis on dementia and multimorbidity. His doctoral research explored palliative care conversations between people living with COPD and healthcare professionals, and his postdoctoral fellowship extended this focus into self-management of multiple long-term conditions in people living with dementia, their family members and informal carers. This work has generated publications in high-quality journals including Palliative Medicine, the Journal of Palliative Medicine, and ERJ Open Research, and has informed national policy documents produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Scottish Government, and the Government of Ireland. He is currently Co-PI on an Alzheimer's Society-funded project developing an AI-assisted approach to medication reviews for people living with dementia (AIMed), and is developing an NIHR Research for Patient Benefit application focused on the role of specialist community services in supporting self-management of long-term conditions in dementia.

Innovation in nursing education — Nuno has a strong track record of pedagogical research and innovation. His work on game-based learning in nursing education, including a published feasibility study in PLOS Digital Health, and his contributions to research on simulation-based education reflect his commitment to developing and evaluating teaching approaches that are engaging, effective, and grounded in evidence. He has taught across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes from Level 4 to Level 8, led modules in complex nursing care and evidence-based practice, and co-leads Year 3 of the Adult Nursing programme and the Evidence-Based Practice thread at Surrey.

Nuno has secured over £829,000 in research funding as principal and co-investigator, from funders including NIHR, the Alzheimer's Society, Health Education England, Healthwatch Portsmouth, and Wessex Health Partners. He has supervised doctoral and master's students across a range of health sciences disciplines, and has co-directed the Centre for Integrated Health and Wellbeing Research at the University of Portsmouth. He is an active member of the DEM-COMM Community of Practice in Dementia Research, the NIHR Long-Term Conditions and Ageing and Dementia Research Groups at the University of Southampton, and the management committee of the COST-Action on Ethics in Dementia. He serves on the editorial board of Annals of Palliative Medicine and Frontiers in Health Services, and reviews for journals including the Journal of Advanced Nursing, BMC Palliative Care, BMJ Open, and PLOS Digital Health.

Nuno is passionate about research that makes a tangible difference to the lives of people living with long-term conditions and their carers, and about preparing the next generation of nurses and allied health professionals to deliver compassionate, evidence-based care.