• Program Lead: Research Quality and Impact
• Research Fello, NeuRA and UNSW School of Population Health

Harrison’ leads the Research Quality & Impact Program which focuses on improving how pain research is designed, conducted, and communicated. This work ensures that evidence used by clinicians, policymakers and people living with chronic pain is reliable, interpretable, and ready for real‑world decision‑making.current research focuses on understanding whether, and for whom interventions for low back pain are safe and effective using large observational datasets. These data, and robust causal inferences approaches can help answer questions that cannot be answered using other sources like randomised trials. He is also interested in developing patient-centred thresholds of clinical importance, the smallest worthwhile effect, to better interpret the effects of treatments.

• TARGET

Conference Presentations:

• Australian Pain Society 45th Annual Scientific Meeting, Melbourne – “Horses for courses: Is surgery necessary for some people with back pain?” – Mr Harrison Hansford, Prof Manuela Ferreira, Dr Paul Licina, Dr Jonathan Quicke, Steve Marsh (2025)
• International Back and Neck Pain Forum, Davos, Switzerland – “Mind the (evidence) gap: new methods to improve evidence-based decision-making” Mr Harrison Hansford, Prof Sallie Lamb, Dr Emma Karran, Dr Hopin Lee, Dr Aidan Cashin (2025)
• International Back and Neck Pain Forum, Davos, Switzerland – “Can we identify which patients to offer lumbar spine surgery?” Dr Bjørnar Berg, Prof Margreth Grotle, Prof Jeremy Fairbank, Prof Nadine Foster, Prof Adrian Gardner (2025)
• Australasian Epidemiological Association Annual Scientific Meeting, Hobart (2025)

Committee Memberships:

• Scientific Program Committee, Australian Pain Society (2025-present)
• Steering committee, TARGET reporting guideline (2022-present)
• Founding secretariat member, Australian Government Impact Evaluation Practitioners Network (2024-present)
• Education Committee member, IASP Early Career Network Education Committee (2023-present)
• Chair, Transparent & Open Research Collaboration in Health (TORCH) (2023-present)
• HDR Representative, UNSW School of Health Sciences Research Committee (2023-present)
• Co-chair, Centre for Pain IMPACT Professional Development Portfolio (2024-present)
• Grant reviewer, National Health and Medical Research Council (2023, 2026)