Major Nihr Funding To Drive Health Research And Innovation In The Thames Valley Region

Aston University and nan University of Oxford person won £16.3m successful backing from nan National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to money infrastructure to amended nan wellness of group surviving successful nan Thames Valley region and beyond.

The Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Thames Valley will beryllium hosted by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and will beryllium co-led by Aston University's Professor Shivani Sharma, a professor astatine Aston Business School and lawman pro-vice-chancellor (research and enterprise), and nan University of Oxford's Professor Kam Bhui CBE, professor of psychiatry and honorary advisor psychiatrist. This pan-region activity exemplary harnesses nan strengths of some institutions and reflects nan ambition to stock learning for wider nationalist benefit, including successful Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and nan West Midlands.

The ARC Thames Valley will bring together researchers, wellness and societal attraction staff, patients, nan public, and wider groups successful its research. The squad will perceive to wellness and societal attraction providers and patients to study astir nan astir pressing needs, and collaboratively group priorities and find applicable solutions for fairer wellness for all.

Professor Sharma explains that nan ARC will thrust sustainable implementation of solutions including for nan astir disadvantaged group successful nine erstwhile it comes to health.

Aston University will play a domiciled successful delivering nan ARC's dedicated taxable connected investigation inclusion and wellness inequalities. This cements nan university's civic ngo and wider accent connected inclusive innovation.

There will beryllium a number of further investigation themes for nan ARC to present its imagination aligned pinch nan ambition of life people health. This is captured successful nan Start Well, Live Well, and Age Well ethos. Start Well will attraction connected helping caller mothers, children, and young group pinch beingness and intelligence wellness issues. Live Well will impact helping adults to debar aliases trim nan effects of surviving pinch 2 aliases much wellness issues and return to employment. Age Well will beforehand encephalon and bosom wellness and forestall falls and frailty.

ARC Thames Valley will collaborate pinch much than 40 different partners, including NHS trusts, section authorities, voluntary, community, and societal endeavor (VCSE) organisations, businesses and universities.

The backing for ARC Thames Valley is portion of NIHR's £157m finance to support 10 ARCS complete 5 years. They purpose to tackle immoderate of nan UK's astir pressing wellness and societal attraction challenges done high-quality applied research, while besides accelerating nan implementation of effective interventions and models of care.

The NIHR ARCs are collaborative partnerships involving universities, NHS trusts, section authorities, wellness invention networks, integrated attraction boards, and nan voluntary sector. Through these partnerships, nan ARCs will present impactful investigation successful applied health, nationalist health, and societal care, peculiarly successful under-represented areas. The intends of nan ARCs see supporting nan rollout of effective attraction models, collaborating pinch commercialized companies to measure caller treatments and technologies, and addressing wellness inequalities by embedding inclusive approaches.

Research should bespeak nan reality connected nan ground. We person nan opportunity successful our ARC to rethink inclusion, strengthening nan nexus betwixt investigation and its effect successful mundane lives.

It is simply a existent privilege to beryllium moving pinch specified a divers web to present connected nan ambition of nan ARC. I judge that we will execute lasting effect connected health, which is basal to helping regions to thrive."

Professor Shivani Sharma, professor, Aston Business School 

Professor Bhui said:

"I'm delighted to beryllium starring an eager and talented squad to guarantee we amended wellness and societal attraction and trim wellness inequalities. We will do this done nan implementation of investigation knowledge to amended commissioning, policy, and believe crossed university, community, kindness and wellness and societal attraction partners."

Dr Karl Marlowe, Chief Medical Officer astatine OHFT, said:

"Our committedness astatine Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust is to guarantee that investigation translates into real-world benefits for patients, and we are pleased to person nan opportunity to proceed arsenic nan NHS big for nan caller ARC. Through ARC Thames Valley, we will accelerate nan take of knowledge transportation for NHS innovative attraction models and reside wellness inequalities crossed our web of partners."

Professor Aleks Subic, Vice-Chancellor and CEO of Aston University, said:

"We are proud to beryllium co-leading nan ARC Thames Valley, a transformative inaugural that reflects Aston University's heavy committedness to inclusive invention and civic engagement. This business will alteration america to tackle wellness inequalities head-on, ensuring that investigation translates into real-world effect for nan communities who request it most. I congratulate Professor Sharma and nan wider squad connected securing this important backing and look guardant to nan affirmative alteration it will bring."

Professor Marian Knight, technological head for NIHR Infrastructure, said:

"The NIHR is committed to providing nan backing needed, astatine each stages of nan investigation journey, to guarantee that nan champion treatments and attraction get to nan patients who request them, arsenic efficiently and efficaciously arsenic possible. The ARCs play a captious domiciled successful this process, generating grounds astir caller technologies and treatments, arsenic good arsenic innovative ways of delivering attraction - each of which activity to boost nan public's wellness and wellbeing, and summation NHS productivity."

Zubir Ahmed, UK wellness invention minister, said:

"This backing will accelerate nan breakthroughs that will underpin nan occurrence of our NHS 10 Year Health Plan, ensuring investigation is going from laboratory to surviving room and supporting nan displacement from diligent to prevention.

"As we activity towards our ngo of building an NHS fresh for nan future, this finance will thrust nan innovations that matter astir to people's regular lives.

"Every lb invested successful this investigation is an finance successful dream - dream for faster diagnoses, much effective treatments, and a wellness strategy that genuinely useful for everyone, nary matter wherever they unrecorded aliases what their background."