Based within the University of Bath, UK, the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG), directed by Prof Anna Gilmore, is an internationally renowned multidisciplinary research team combining diverse academic staff and investigative journalists. It brings in-depth knowledge of all aspects of TI behaviour and skills in the diverse methodologies relevant to this project including investigative research, digital methods and documentary analysis.
obaccoTactics is a new model of academic research dissemination, launched in 2012 by the TCRG.
Its unique feature is that the site enables the TCRG to make preliminary research findings publicly available faster than would occur via traditional academic outputs. The site provides timely access to findings in a user-friendly format. On TobaccoTactics you can find information on:
- tactics and arguments used by the industry to promote a pro-tobacco and nicotine agenda and halt advances in public health;
- the organisations, institutions, and people that the industry collaborates with, including front groups and third parties, who lobby on its behalf; and
- current topics such as Plain Packaging, Tobacco Smuggling, alternative products such as E-cigarettes and Heated Tobacco Products, and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.
The Secretariat to the FCTC has recognised TobaccoTactics as the gold standard on tobacco industry monitoring and is now trying to establish other regional monitoring sites around the world based on the TCRG model.4 Sites have been set up in Brazil and Sri Lanka,5 in which the TCRG has played a key supportive role.67
