Launch event of the NIHR Leeds Clinical Research Facility

30 September 2022

The launch event of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leeds Clinical Research Facility (CRF) took place on Friday 30 September. The event saw an exceptional group of speakers and presenters at the event, and it was wonderful to welcome Professor Sir Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of NHS England and Professor of Renal Medicine at University College London who delivered a keynote speech to the event.

The launch was a fantastic celebration of the success achieved by Professor Chris Twelves, Clinical Director at the NIHR Leeds CRF, and the whole CRF team following the award of £8.7m made by the NIHR to the Trust this year. This represented a greater than 10-fold increase in our NIHR Leeds CRF funding. The launch demonstrated the scale of partnerships the CRF has; in particular with the University of Leeds, Leeds Hospitals Charity and our other Charity partners as well as the commercial health sector but also our diverse local communities. All are pivotal, along with our staff, to delivering our strategic plans as we aim to be the best Trust to deliver high-quality clinical research whilst championing research amongst all our Trust staff.

Leeds Hospitals Charity have provided significant funding to support the Clinical Research Facility, and have recently funded the Jeremy Neill Allen Fellowship, providing 3 years of continued funding which allows trainees to take a year out of training and focus on developing their research skills.

The NIHR Leeds CRF will provide greater access for patients to novel treatments, support economic growth, and has already played a crucial role in COVID-19 trials. In particular, the CRF supported testing of the Novavax vaccine that has been given regulatory approval and the COV-Boost trial, which is informing decisions about booster vaccinations.