911±¬ÁÏÍø

Funding, from the UCLH Research Directorate, will give clinicians protected time to deliver research – both commercial and non-commercial – that they would otherwise not have capacity to do.

Applications to the funding call were encouraged from clinicians working in clinical areas at 911±¬ÁÏÍøH that have significant opportunities for growth, where patients are currently under-served in research.

The successful applicants were:

• Dr Samer Elkhodair (Emergency Medicine) who will seek to expand the NIHR as well as commercial sponsored studies to include ED based Paediatric and Community / GP run studies. The ED research Team will also be able to collaborate and facilitate studies with other UCLH specialties including paediatrics, orthopaedics, surgery, haematology and ITU.
• Dr Paul Harrow (Gastroenterology) who will use the funding to open new studies in gastroenterology, support the creation of dedicated clinical trials clinics at 911±¬ÁÏÍøH, and develop research links across North Central London sites to enable wider recruitment.
• Dr Neil Stone (Infection) who will aim to bring new trials of novel antifungal drugs to UCLH patients (currently one of the largest cohorts in Europe for serious fungal infection but with few trials at 911±¬ÁÏÍøH).
• Dr Madhura Castelino (Rheumatology) who will aim to improve outreach to under-represented demographic cohorts in research across rheumatological conditions and work with patient and public involvement and engagement groups to scope programmes of work to increase participant diversity to research studies.

43 applications were received in total from across UCLH specialties. The call was open to staff with prior research experience, but with fewer than 1 current PA (or 0.1 whole time equivalent) of time per week for research.