Robert Witton is a fellow of the HEA and has a particular interest in community –based dental education and community activities to improve oral health on a population basis. He has a background in public health as a registered specialist and Consultant and plays a key role in the dental school’s award winning social enterprise and its partner community engagement team (CET). The CET has particular expertise in working with vulnerable and disadvantaged community groups to address oral health inequalities for the benefit of dental education and communities. This novel approach has attracted national and international interest. He has presented oral and poster presentations at national and international dental conferences (FDI Delhi 2014, ADEE Hungary 2015, Chicago 2016 and Charlotte 2017) and advised other Universities in the UK on this approach. The success of the programme has been recognised through a Guardian University Award for Social Impact in 2015 and through numerous other regional and local awards.

Research interests

Robert has an interest in health services research with a particular focus on community health improvement, prevention and clinical quality improvement. He is involved in postgraduate research supervision and works with a number of research networks. Robert also has a key role in obtaining external Grant Funding to deliver social engagement and community projects for the benefit of the dental school’s social enterprise arm Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise CIC. Since its inception in September 2013 it has received over £320K from the Wrigley Company Foundation, Oral Health Foundation and local grant providers and is developing and delivering a number of innovative and successful projects to adults with learning disability, supporting children’s oral health through digital resource development and regional/national health improvement campaigns.

For more information https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/robert-witton