The Sheffield BRC continues to be a driving force for innovation and collaboration in the NIHR landscape, working with local, regional and national NIHR initiatives and infrastructure and striving to always embody the “One NIHR” vision. 

Local NIHR Collaborations 

Strategic partnerships with the NIHR Sheffield Clinical Research Facility and HealthTech Research Centre in Long Term Conditions (Devices for Dignity) allow sharing expertise through joint appointments, co-managed projects and initiatives, and integrated governance. 

• 46 BRC-CRF joint projects

• 15 BRC-HRC joint projects

Highlights include the successful BRC/CRF Showcase in May 2024, which strengthened research connections across Sheffield. 

Regional NIHR Collaborations 

Sheffield BRC are a member of the:

• Northern BRC Collective alongside the Northern Health Science Alliance, with Manchester/Leeds/Newcastle BRCs. The group has established effective partnerships and knowledge exchange across: Industry, Imaging, Data, Training, PPIE and the strategic Northern BRC Operations Network.

• Yorkshire and Humber One NIHR group which ensures a joined-up approach to capacity building across NIHR infrastructures. Through this group the Sheffield BRC provided support to the NIHR Y&H ARC renewal submission.

Translational Research Collaborations (TRCs)

Sheffield BRC are members of and contributing to the:

• NIHR Dementia TRC

• NIHR-BHF Cardiovascular Partnership

• NIHR Respiratory TRC

Our investigators expertise supports key themes across the TRCs including cardiovascular and maternal health, digital and computer modelling, biomarker discovery and increasing capacity for early phase research.

National NIHR Collaborations 

NIHR Informatics Group

Actively supporting key initiatives and working groups to support broader developments and to deliver national policies:

• Secure Data Environments working group

• BRC Digital Assets and Capabilities

• Policy and Strategy

NIHR Imaging Group

11 Sheffield PIs and ECRs presented at the network meeting in 2025 on MRI, CT and optical imaging technologies.

We lead on a national xenon MRI clinical imaging network having provided sites at BRCs in Oxford/Cambridge/UCL/Leicester/Manchester with Sheffield generated MRI pulse sequences, RF coil solutions and xenon polariser systems for turnkey xenon MRI.

EXPERTS-ALS

Sheffield co-lead with Oxford the EXPERTS-ALS national NIHR funded programme which aims to screen candidate drugs for ALS (the commonest form of motor neurone disease) more quickly, identifying those with likely clinical benefit to prioritise for testing in larger trials.

NIHR PPIE Leads Group

Our PPIE Leads serve as co-chairs to this group, alongside Oxford BRC members.

MLTC Cross-NIHR Collaboration

One of our BRC-funded investigators (EDI co-lead) is involved in the Multiple Long-Term Conditions Cross-NIHR Collaboration as a co-lead for an inequalities cross cutting theme.

Key Strategic Partnerships 

• PAREXEL Alliance Site and IQVIA Northern Prime Site collaborations:
  Expanding access to patients, investigator capacity development and improving efficiency/quality of clinical trials.

• Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA):
  Collaborating with partners within NHSA in the development of the Institute for Preventative Health Research and across Data Innovation workstreams.

• MRC/LifeArc Gene Therapy Innovation and Manufacturing Centre (GTIMC):
  Accelerating development of gene therapy programmes by partnering with industry, creating new manufacturing processes, IP for out-licensing/collaborative R&D, and producing an advanced therapies industry workforce.

• Advanced Therapy Treatment Centres (ATTC) Pan UK forum:
  Collaborating nationally to develop innovative ATMP trial design, harnessing national expertise, and partnering with Industry to leverage the UKs position as a preferred environment for ATMP trials.

We partner with STH Clinical Research and Innovation Office and UoS Innovation, Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation Team; fostering partnerships/collaborations with pharmaceutical and life sciences companies to support the translational pipeline across the BRC. Our themes maximise collaborative links with industry partners, this year leveraging: 

• >£3.7million from industry collaborations/partnerships 

• >£1.1million in commercial trial income 

• 18 new partnerships with commercial organisations 

We foster industry relationships to effectively: 

• Deploy spinout companies 

• Strengthen infrastructure 

• Deliver impactful and innovative projects and initiatives 

Translational Neuroscience Theme

• Our teams are specialist in deploying industry-backed spin-out companies (Crucible Therapeutics, Aclipse Therapeutics, BlackfinBio), developing novel treatments and technologies poised for clinical trial initiation.

• Our Dementia investigators continue to lead innovation in collaboration with industry partners, Eli Lilly, expanding CSF biomarker testing for patients and upskilling nurses to deliver LPs in clinical trials.

• EXPERTS-ALS investigators have instigated commercial partnerships within the IMP identification workstream of the program.

• Harnessing the internationally renowned expertise of our MS and neuromuscular investigators, Sheffield is leading international industry CAR-T trials.

Cardiovascular Disease Theme

• In collaboration with Novartis, we have completed translational work on SMURF1 as a therapeutic target in pulmonary arterial hypertension leading to phase II development.

• With MSD, we are confirming using novel implanted pulmonary artery pressure monitors to optimize therapies and deliver personalized medicine in pulmonary hypertension.

• Through work with AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk, we have led national trials and programmes of work through to Phase III in atherothrombosis.

• Within medical technology and digital, our investigators partner with Google Health to deliver a vital programme of research to explore digital solutions for early diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors

Infection and Immunity Theme

• Collaborations with Pfizer, GSK and Perrigo see us testing and supporting monoclonal antibodies and other novel therapies.

• Partnering with GSK, we support development of new therapeutics and vaccines for the AMR pathogen Staphylococcus aureus.

• With AstraZeneca, we lead a study generating disease burden data on respiratory viruses in vulnerable populations for future vaccine rollout.

• In diagnostics, we are working with Oxford Nanopore Technologies to bring genomic assays into routine NHS use.

Imaging and Engineering Theme

• Our investigators long-standing relationship with GE HealthCare has developed novel imaging hardware which is now clinically available or being pulled through into device trials.

• In smart devices, sensors and wearables, BRC investigators partner with Google Health. The partnership has successfully embedded Fitbits and smartphone sensors into projects across clinical cohorts. Investigators are further collaborating with Google to apply the Gemini Large Language Model.

Our research themes bring together dynamic teams of internationally leading researchers and rising stars from a range of disciplines to achieve our BRC aim of bridging the gap between new discoveries and improved patient care. We fund a wide range of people, including consultants, doctors, clinical and pre-clinical researchers, healthcare and non-medical professionals and students. 

• 47 BRC-funded academy members

• 27 BRC-funded investigators

• 28 infrastructure centre staff

Academic Career Development 

Training the next generation of research leaders and preparing Allied Health Professions for the future of healthcare is a major objective of the Sheffield BRC. 

We aim to attract, develop and retain the best new researchers by:

• encouraging opportunities for strategic collaborations for our researchers

• driving initiatives to support greater gender balance in academic research

• promoting interdisciplinary research to drive innovation that will deliver intelligent medicine to patients and the health system

In the last 12 months, we have more than doubled our BRC funded academy members from 22 to 47.

We successfully implemented BRC training academy associate membership, supporting those helping to achieve theme objectives, even when not directly funded. Associates are invited to training events, receive ACD-related emails, and can access BRC funding opportunities. 

Top five key ACD achievements this year: 

1. We hosted our first annual presentation day. Doctoral students presented orally; other members presented posters. An external panel provided feedback and awarded prizes. 

2. We funded five students through the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), supporting them to complete a summer placement working on research.

• Three students are now considering a career in research, two of them reporting this was a direct result of SURE

• One student subsequently presented at an international conference and PPIE event, and is currently developing a publication.

SURE also benefited supervisors; all reporting that expectations were met/exceeded and helped develop them as an ECR. One won a supervision prize.

3. Supported 15 pump-priming clinical fellowships, providing time/experience to develop successful applications for career development awards. 

4. We increased capacity of the Healthcare Professional (HCP) Internship Scheme, providing funding for HCP interns working on research projects supporting theme objectives, collaborating with NIHR Sheffield CRF and STH to administer this scheme. Through this scheme we funded a dietician, physiotherapist, cardiac physiologist, occupational therapist and clinical trials assistant; professions which are often excluded due to lack of professional registration.

• One intern went on to obtain pre-application support funding to continue their academic career.

5. Recruited nine healthcare professionals to the Pre-Application Support Fund Scheme, starting April 2025. 

In 24/25, our funded BRC training academy members have: 

• Delivered 59 oral/poster presentations and won 8 prizes 

• Developed a documentary for Parkinson’s patients within UK South Asian community 

• Written for Readable Research which received 32k worldwide website visitors and 311 newsletter subscriptions last year

• Obtained further career development funding (2 NIHR ACFs, 2 postdoctoral positions, 2 fellowships) 

• Co-authored 37 journal publications 

• Been appointed to the trainee editorial board of Radiology: Artificial Intelligence 

• Organised BSCI 2024 conference 

Research inclusion (RI) is embedded throughout NIHR Sheffield BRC. Our core team work with our RI Co-Leads and an expert team of Community Engagement, Ethnic Diversity and Primary Care leaders, research fellows and a PhD student to promote more inclusive research involvement, participation and engagement across themes. 

We also work closely with our NIHR infrastructure colleagues in the CRF, developing and implementing joint PPIE and EDI strategies which can be viewed on our website:

Click here for our PPIE strategy

Click here for our EDI strategy

Our vision is to embed RI across the lifecycle of clinical research that we conduct, from informing research priorities to study design and how we disseminate results. We want to ensure the trials we deliver serve the needs of patients, the community and the NHS, and want our findings to be communicated effectively. 

Key initiatives and impact: 

• BRC researchers co-created CognoSpeak (a new AI tool that could help doctors assess the early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s more quickly and efficiently) with the Somali community at the ISRAAC centre. Three new centres have been added to this project focusing on the recruitment of ethnic minority groups, to ensure inclusion of diverse communities based on language, cultural and socioeconomic background. This team won an international EDI “Made With Patients Award”. 

• Our EDI Senior Research Fellow secured additional funding to build capacity and further expand the BRC RI team. This led to the appointment of two additional staff members. 

• Our BRC funded PhD explores inclusive recruitment/retention strategies for ethnic minority groups in clinical trials. They are undertaking a scoping review to identify what recruitment/retention methods have been tested and evaluated in practice and with which groups. This will help us identify what the state of current evidence is and for which groups, and inform the subsequent work, including methods to test and with which groups to do this. The review findings will also enable the RI team to provide tailored recommendations to researchers on which methods are potentially evidence-based, and which methods of recruitment/retention could benefit from further testing.