A Twitter campaign which started at the James Paget University Hospital just 12 months ago has passed a major milestone after taking off across the globe.

Senior research nurse Claire Gibbs sent the first tweet bearing the hashtag #whywedoresearch on December 8 last year for what she and research administrator Abby Greaves thought would be a local initiative to highlight the important of medical research, based on a 12 days of Christmas theme.

However, within days, it became clear that the initiative was more global than local, with people from across the world exchanging ideas and wanting to get involved.

Now, #whywedoresearch has reached 50 million page impressions – or items delivered to its Twitter stream - with contributions from more than 4500 Twitter accounts connected via cyberspace.

'We were amazed to see the campaign take off so quickly,' said Claire, 'It just seemed to gain momentum, like a runaway train!'

The initial concept was simple: people would join the campaign by tweeting a photo showing themselves holding up a piece of paper with a few words summing up their thoughts on the importance of research.

But it became clear that those engaging with the campaign wanted more, particularly research information.

And so a dedicated website – www.whywedoresearch.weebly.com - was launched to give new followers an understanding of the campaign and act as an electronic library for resources, including studies and blogs from medical research specialists and patients across the world.

The website has grown too – and is now home to blogs written by patients and healthcare staff and a recently completed survey to gather feedback on the campaign, which has supporters in more than 20 different countries worldwide.

Such is its success that the campaign was shortlisted from more than 60 entries in the clinical research nursing category of this year's Nursing Times awards.

While it didn't win, Claire and her colleagues enjoyed attending the awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

But Claire isn't resting on her laurels. Instead, she is looking to push the campaign further in a new phase.

'The last year has really been focussed on bringing together the research community - including patients and staff - locally, nationally and internationally,' she said.

'The collaborators team next plan to focus on getting the campaign in to the 'healthy' population as well as those who regularly attend hospitals or GP surgeries as patients.

'For many people, research means looking for cures for high profile illnesses such as cancer. But it is far, far wider than that, encompassing therapies and surveys as well as medications. It embraces every aspect of care. The entire health system we have today is based on decades of research.

'We hope that, by widening the focus of the campaign, we can encourage people to become better informed and get involved in some of the many research projects taking place in their locality.'