Dr Josie Billington (School of English, University of Liverpool and TRO Research Manager)

Dr Jane Davis (Director, The Reader Organsiation)

Professor Philip Davis (School of English, University of Liverpool and Editor, The Reader)

Professor Chris Dowrick (Faculty of Medicine, Head of Primary Care Division)

Dr Dave Fearnley (Deputy Director, Mersey Care NHS Trust, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist)

Dr Andrew Hamer (School of English, University of Liverpool)

Dr Jude Robinson (Senior Lecturere, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Liverpool)

Professor Ken Wilson (School of Community, Behavioural and Population Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Liverpool).

Challenges for the research team include: devising a methodology sufficiently robust to meet medical criteria without damaging or misrepresenting the subtlety of the process (interaction of reader and literature) it is attempting to measure; finding possible theoretical bases for, and overcoming practical difficulties of, establishing how literature 'gets across', transculturally and trans-temporally, and how it bridges a literary/non-literary divide (why do readers who have not been readers still gain from the activity?); harnessing the potential these research projects hold for reclaiming literature as pivotal in relation to health and well-being by offering an existing language for the observation, understanding and analysis of complex human experience.