NIHR Infrastructures

NIHR Imperial BRC collaborates with a wide number of other NIHR Infrastructures covering translation from experimental medicine to late-phase trials and adoption.

Our NIHR-funded infrastructures are aligned to deliver real heath impacts to the NWL region and beyond.

NIHR Translational Research Collaborations

NIHR Translational Research Collaborations (TRCs) are collaborative groups of world-leading investigators established via NIHR Biomedical Research Centres with significant expertise in specific disease areas. The TRCs enable NIHR to work together with industry, charities and other stakeholders to develop and deliver early-phase translational research at scale.

NIHR Imperial BRC is a member of all of the NIHR TRCs, details can be found here.

NIHR BioResource

The NIHR BioResource recruits and maintains a resource of data and samples donated by over 200,000 people. Researchers can use this resource to call up potential participants for studies to understand the links between genes, the environment, health and disease.

The NIHR Imperial BRC hosts one of the NIHR BioResource centres across England.

Dr Horace Williams and Dr Nichola Cooper are the Academic Contacts at Imperial College

Find out more about the NIHR BioResource.

NIHR Clinical Research Facility (CRF)

The NIHR Imperial CRF is part of The UK Clinical Research Facility (CRF) Network which supports CRFs to deliver clinical trials of the highest standard and promotes the UK as the place for investment in and economic growth from health research. Read more about the UK CRF Network.

NIHR Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs)

NIHR HPRUs undertake high quality research that is used by UK Health Security Agency to keep the public safe from current and emerging public health threats. Imperial hosts 3 of the 14 national HPUs –

NIHR HPU in Healthcare-associated infections & Antimicrobial Resistance

NIHR HPU in Modelling and Health Economics

NIHR HPU in Respiratory Infections

NIHR Patient Safety Research Centre (PSRC)

NIHR PSRCs are NHS/university partnerships in England that undertake high quality translational, applied and health services research on patient safety that addresses strategic patient safety challenges within the health and care system. The PSRCs aim to develop, validate and test innovations, approaches and interventions that have the potential to lead to improvements in patient safety and the safety of health and care services.

NIHR Imperial PSRC Themes complement our BRC ie. data-enabled healthcare, patients with complex needs.

NIHR Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMC)

Imperial College Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) is one of the 18 adult centres located throughout the UK that are jointly funded by CRUK and NIHR. Each ECMC centre has a unique capability and they aim to provide support for translating laboratory findings into early phase clinical trials and share knowledge and expertise throughout the network and collaborate with Industry.

NIHR In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) Co-operative

The London IVD centres generate evidence to support diagnostic test development. They achieve this by developing research methods for evidence generation and collaborate with various stakeholders to support this process. They work with clinicians to identify unmet needs for diagnostics and with diagnostic test developers to explore the utility of specific tests within UK NHS settings. By facilitating the adoption of new, improved tests into clinical practice they hope to improve the quality of patient care within the NHS.

NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN)

ICHT hosts the NIHR NWL CRN which provides the infrastructure to allow high-quality health and social care research to take place within our area, for the benefit of patients and the public. The CRNs help to increase the opportunities for people to take part in research and ensure that studies are carried out efficiently.

NIHR Applied Research Collaborative (ARC)

In partnership with Chelsea & Westminster Foundation NHS Trust, the NIHR NWL ARC, builds on our joint informatics capability to support applied health and care research for the local population.

Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC)

The AHSC is a partnership between Imperial College London, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. The AHSC aims to accelerate the translation of scientific and engineering breakthroughs into innovative ways of preventing and treating disease.

NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC)

NIHR HIC is a partnership of 28 NHS trusts and health boards, working together to facilitate the equitable re-use of NHS data for translational research. It aims to improve the quality and availability of routinely-collected clinical data, making it available for cross-centre collaborative research.

The NIHR HIC is broken down into key therapeutic areas which are known as HIC Themes. The NIHR Imperial BRC team lead on the Cardiovascular Theme, the Infectious Diseases (Sepsis) Theme and the Lung Cancer Theme.

Inter-BRC Collaborations

With the Royal Marsden BRC we are addressing the needs of cancer patients in NWL.

Through the NIHR Translational Research Collaborations (TRCs) we collaborate with other BRCs around the country. Our BRC was one of the founding partners of the Oncology TRC, with our Surgery & Cancer Theme leading one workstream. We actively engage with all the other TRCs and are involved in discussions around the formation of a new Surgical TRC with Bristol.

Building on the highly successful NIHR HIC collaborative we continue to work with a number of NIHR BRCs using federated analytics across Trusted Research Environments, delivering new digital tools and analyses using linked primary and secondary care data.