We are pleased to share that our CARE4NEt research members, Dr. Houssem Eddine Ben-Ahmed, Dr. Intissar Souli, and Dr. Emmanuel Akwasi Marfo, have just published an original, open-access, peer-reviewed paper in the Journal – Health Policy and Technology – a Q1 Journal with an Impact Factor of 3.7 and a CiteScore of 6.2. This scholarly contribution is a significant addition to the Strategic Theme 1 | Nursing Workforce Issues, one of the six strategic themes guiding our Network’s mission. Our research members co-authored this paper with Abir Rebhi, a PhD student at the Faculty of Nursing, Université de Montréal (Canada).

This paper highlights that faculty shortage is a growing global nursing workforce issue that threatens the quality of nursing. The authors suggest that integrating Internationally Educated Nurses with master’s or doctoral degrees into academia would reduce faculty shortages and increase diversity. They believe that empowering the future nursing workforce is only possible through adopting innovative, practical, and targeted policies.

Briefly, the paper addresses nursing faculty shortages, which have received less attention in the literature and media outlets compared to registered clinical nursing staff shortages. One may question whether we do not have enough nursing faculty to teach and train students, who will take that responsibility? This critical question should be addressed by nursing leaders, researchers, and key system partners to develop innovative and sustainable policies that reduce nursing faculty shortages. Otherwise, the nursing faculty shortage would negatively affect the quality of nursing education and lead to a declining number of nursing seats, which should be avoided as we need more nurses in the upcoming years. This paper suggested developing a new policy for nursing regulators, titled “Non-clinical Academic Registration Category”, to support internationally educated nurses (IENs) with master’s or doctoral degrees who wish to contribute to the nursing faculty workforce. To better understand the context of this policy and its benefits, the paper described the challenges of the registration process experienced by three IENs and the implications of integrating them into the workforce. Through collective and innovative policies, we can empower the future nursing faculty workforce and rationally respond to the ongoing crisis.

This achievement reflects the growing impact of CARE4NEt’s research community and the dedication of our members to fostering innovation and excellence in nursing leadership. On this occasion, we would like to thank the University of Ottawa for covering the Open access fees. 

We warmly congratulate Dr. Ben-Ahmed, Dr. Souli, Dr. Marfo, and Ms Rebhi on this important work and invite our community to read and share their work. Stay tuned for more updates from our dynamic research network!

June 20, 2025