Professor Hugh Barr: A Tribute to a Pioneer of Interprofessional Education

By | 27th August 2025
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Authors:
Dr Andreas Xyrichis
Reader in Interprofessional Science, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery, & Palliative Care, King’s College London University, London, United Kingdom
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Interprofessional Care

Correspondence to andreas.xyrichis[at]kcl.ac.uk

Professor Hugh Barr: 1935 – 2025

With profound sadness, we acknowledge the passing of Professor Hugh Barr, whose extraordinary legacy continues to shape interprofessional education and collaborative practice worldwide. This tribute reflects on his transformative contributions to our field and the personal impact he had on countless colleagues and students. Personal tributes to Hugh can be shared with CAIPE here.

The interprofessional education community has lost one of its most influential and beloved figures. Professor Hugh Barr passed away peacefully, leaving behind a legacy that has fundamentally transformed how healthcare professionals learn together and work collaboratively to improve patient care. As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Interprofessional Care, a position Hugh helped establish and nurture, I feel both the weight of this loss and the privilege of celebrating a remarkable life dedicated to advancing interprofessional education and collaborative practice.

The Architect of a Movement

Hugh Barr’s influence on interprofessional education cannot be overstated. For multiple decades, he served as the intellectual architect of a movement that fundamentally reimagined healthcare education. His journey in interprofessional education began four decades ago when he recognised that healthcare’s increasingly complex challenges required professionals who could work seamlessly across professional boundaries. What started as a personal passion has become the foundation of modern healthcare education worldwide.

His role as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Interprofessional Care represented more than editorial leadership; it embodied his vision of creating a global platform where scholars, educators, and practitioners could share evidence, debate ideas, and advance the field together. Under his guidance, the journal became the definitive voice in interprofessional education, publishing groundbreaking research that continues to inform policy and practice across the globe.

The definition of interprofessional education that Hugh helped craft for CAIPE, “when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care” (CAIPE, 2002), has become the international standard, adopted by organisations from the World Health Organization to national healthcare systems worldwide. This deceptively simple statement represents years of careful thought and consultation, capturing the essence of collaborative learning whilst remaining practical enough for widespread implementation.

A Global Vision Realised

Perhaps no aspect of Hugh’s work was more transformative than his commitment to internationalising interprofessional education. His visiting professorship roles across six continents over more than 25 years established him as a true global ambassador for interprofessional education. From universities in Australia and Japan to institutions across Europe and North America, Hugh planted seeds of interprofessional learning that continue to flourish.

His work with the World Health Organization Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice exemplified his ability to translate academic insights into policy recommendations that could improve healthcare systems globally. The WHO’s Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (2010), which Hugh helped shape, has guided national healthcare strategies and educational reforms across dozens of countries.

As Convenor of the World Coordinating Committee for Interprofessional Education and Practice (now Interprofessional.Global), Hugh created networks that transcended geographical and cultural boundaries. His philosophy of fostering international communication, exchange, and mutual support resulted in research collaborations, student exchanges, and policy initiatives that continue to strengthen interprofessional education worldwide. His global environmental scan work (2015) demonstrated how interprofessional education had spread from a handful of innovative programmes to a worldwide movement, documenting the field’s remarkable growth whilst identifying areas for future development.

Scholarly Excellence and Theoretical Innovation

Hugh’s intellectual contributions to interprofessional education were both prolific and profound. In particular, “Effective Interprofessional Education: Argument, Assumption and Evidence” (2005), co-authored with distinguished colleagues including my late mentor Professor Scott Reeves, established the evidence base that legitimised interprofessional education within academic medicine and health professions education.

This wasn’t merely an academic exercise. Hugh understood that for interprofessional education to thrive, it needed rigorous theoretical foundations and robust empirical evidence. His successive systematic reviews, encompassing over 350 international studies, provided the evidence base that convinced sceptical educators, healthcare leaders, and policymakers that interprofessional education could indeed improve collaborative practice and patient outcomes.

His work on theoretical frameworks for interprofessional education provided educators with practical tools for curriculum design and programme evaluation. These frameworks, characterised by their clarity and applicability, have guided thousands of interprofessional education initiatives worldwide. Hugh possessed the rare ability to synthesise complex theoretical concepts into frameworks that practising educators could readily implement whilst maintaining scholarly rigour.

His prolific writing extended beyond peer-reviewed articles to include numerous books, policy papers, and commissioned reports. His comprehensive reviews of interprofessional education development in different countries provided invaluable insights into how cultural, political, and educational contexts shape the implementation of interprofessional learning. These works remain essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the global landscape of interprofessional education (see https://www.caipe.org/resources/publications).

The Mentor and Colleague We Remember

Beyond his scholarly achievements, those of us who knew Hugh personally will remember his remarkable qualities as a mentor, colleague, and friend. I was privileged to work alongside him during my time on the CAIPE board and in my role as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Our regular fish and chips lunches followed by walks around Greenwich weren’t just pleasant interludes; they were masterclasses in how to think deeply about interprofessional education while remaining grounded in its practical applications.

Hugh possessed an extraordinary ability to see potential in emerging scholars and to nurture their development with patience and wisdom. His collaborations with both established and early-career researchers worldwide demonstrated his commitment to developing the next generation of leaders in interprofessional education. He understood that sustainable change required building capacity within the scholarly community, and he invested generously in mentoring relationships that often spanned decades.

Those Greenwich walks revealed Hugh’s approach to leadership: thoughtful, inclusive, and always focused on the bigger picture. He would listen carefully to emerging challenges in the field, ask probing questions that revealed underlying assumptions, and offer insights that invariably shifted thinking in productive directions. His leadership of CAIPE for over three decades exemplified this approach: he built consensus while maintaining momentum, fostered innovation while preserving core principles, and created space for diverse voices while ensuring coherent direction.

Hugh’s personal qualities, including his intellectual generosity, his commitment to collaborative working, and his ability to find common ground amongst diverse perspectives, embodied the very principles he championed in interprofessional education. He lived the collaborative approach he advocated, demonstrating how professionals from different backgrounds could work together effectively whilst respecting each other’s unique contributions.

The Continuing Influence

Hugh’s influence extends far beyond his direct contributions to research and policy. The theoretical frameworks he developed continue to guide curriculum design in healthcare education programmes worldwide. His emphasis on evidence-based practice has established methodological standards that ensure interprofessional education research meets the highest scholarly standards whilst remaining relevant to practitioners and policymakers.

The widespread adoption of his definitional work has created a shared understanding that enables international collaboration and comparison of interprofessional education initiatives. This shared vocabulary has been crucial in establishing a cohesive field of study and practice that transcends national and cultural boundaries.

His mentoring relationships have created networks of interprofessional education leaders who continue to advance the field in ways that reflect Hugh’s values and vision. From Australia to Canada, from Scandinavia to South Africa, former students and colleagues are now leading interprofessional education initiatives that bear the hallmarks of Hugh’s approach: rigorous, collaborative, internationally minded, and always focused on improving patient care through better professional collaboration.

The Journal of Interprofessional Care, which Hugh helped establish and guide, continues to serve as the field’s premier publication venue. The editorial standards he established, the international scope he championed, and the commitment to practical relevance he maintained continue to shape the journal’s direction and impact.

Personal Reflections

As I write this tribute, I’m struck by how Hugh’s approach to interprofessional education mirrored his approach to life and relationships. He understood that sustainable change happens through patient building of relationships, careful attention to evidence, and consistent commitment to shared values.

Hugh taught us that interprofessional education isn’t simply about bringing different professions together; it’s about creating new ways of thinking, learning, and working that transcend traditional professional boundaries whilst respecting disciplinary expertise. This nuanced understanding, that collaboration requires both respect for difference and commitment to shared purpose, infused everything he did.

His personal warmth, intellectual rigour, and practical wisdom made him an ideal mentor for those of us privileged to work with him. He had the rare gift of making complex ideas accessible whilst never oversimplifying or compromising scholarly standards. Our conversations invariably left me thinking more clearly about challenges in interprofessional education and more confident about potential solutions.

The connection between Hugh and my mentor Scott Reeves created a scholarly lineage that demonstrates how interprofessional education knowledge is transmitted across generations. Their collaborative work, including the influential texts on effective interprofessional education, represents a model of how senior scholars can work together to advance a field while nurturing emerging talent.

A Lasting Tribute

Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Hugh Barr’s legacy is the thriving global community of interprofessional education scholars, educators, and practitioners who continue his work. Every interprofessional education programme that improves collaborative practice, every research study that advances our understanding of effective interprofessional learning, every policy initiative that removes barriers to collaborative healthcare delivery, represents a continuation of the work Hugh began.

The Journal of Interprofessional Care, which I am now privileged to lead, will continue to serve as a platform for the kind of rigorous, internationally minded, practically relevant scholarship that Hugh championed throughout his career. Each issue will reflect his commitment to evidence-based interprofessional education that makes a real difference in healthcare outcomes.

CAIPE, under continued leadership inspired by Hugh’s example, will maintain its role as an international centre of excellence for interprofessional education. The organisation’s conferences, publications, and policy initiatives will continue to reflect the collaborative, evidence-based approach that Hugh embedded in its institutional culture.

Most importantly, the countless healthcare professionals who have benefited from interprofessional education programmes influenced by Hugh’s work continue to provide collaborative, patient-centred care that improves health outcomes. This practical impact, the ultimate goal of all interprofessional education initiatives, represents Hugh’s most enduring legacy.

Conclusion

Professor Hugh Barr’s passing marks the end of an era in interprofessional education, but his influence will continue to shape the field for generations to come. His combination of intellectual rigour, practical wisdom, international perspective, and personal warmth created a unique contribution that transformed how healthcare professionals learn together and work collaboratively.

Those of us who knew Hugh personally will miss his thoughtful guidance, his generous mentorship, and his ability to see possibilities where others saw only challenges. The interprofessional education community has lost one of its founding figures and most respected voices. Healthcare education more broadly has lost a visionary leader whose work improved the preparation of countless healthcare professionals.

But Hugh would not want us to dwell on loss. He would want us to continue the work of building interprofessional education that prepares healthcare professionals to collaborate effectively in providing the best possible patient care. He would want us to maintain the international networks he helped create, to build upon the theoretical foundations he established, and to preserve the commitment to evidence-based practice he consistently championed.

As we remember Hugh Barr’s remarkable contributions to interprofessional education and collaborative practice, we also commit to continuing the work he began. The fish and chips lunches and Greenwich walks may be memories now, but the vision of interprofessional education that can transform healthcare through improved collaboration remains very much alive.

Hugh’s legacy lives on in every interprofessional education programme worldwide, in every research study that advances our understanding of collaborative learning, in every healthcare team that works more effectively because they learned together. That is a legacy of which he could be justly proud, and one that will continue to improve healthcare for generations to come.

Professor Hugh Barr (1935-2025): Visionary, scholar, mentor, friend. His life’s work continues in every collaborative healthcare interaction, every interprofessional learning experience, and every research study that advances our understanding of how professionals can work better together. We are all better for his contributions to our field and our lives.

Further Reading

For those interested in exploring Professor Barr’s work in interprofessional education, consider these resources: