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Research Infrastructure

Our infrastructure provides research expertise, specialist facilities, a research delivery workforce and support services which all help to support and deliver the research we fund, and research funded by others. Research funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), medical research charities, the life sciences industry (biopharmaceuticals, medtech, genomics, diagnostics and digital health), and other relevant industries all benefit from the network of services and support that we provide. 

The life sciences industry chooses to work with NIHR infrastructure to access expertise in designing, setting up and delivering high quality, innovative research. By offering this support to multinational companies, we encourage them to conduct their clinical studies in the UK, allowing researchers, patients and the public access to potential new treatments as well as growing the UK’s share of the global market.  We also help home-grown SMEs to establish themselves and thrive. Through our support for companies large and small, we make a significant contribution to the UK economy.

Find out more about the services and support we have available.

The NIHR experimental medicine infrastructure enables researchers to develop clinical applications from scientific breakthroughs, to translate these discoveries into new treatments for patients.

The NIHR Clinical Research Network  is comprised of 15 Local Clinical Research Networks and 30 Specialties who coordinate and support the delivery of high-quality research both by geography and therapy area. 

The NIHR Applied Research Collaborations support applied health and care research that responds to, and meets, the needs of local populations and local health and care systems.

The NIHR Research Design Service provides support on all aspects of developing and writing a funding application, including research design, research methods, identifying funding sources and involving patients and the public. 

The NIHR Patient Recruitment Centres  are 100% dedicated to delivering commercial research. They have been designed to increase the UK’s capacity to deliver large scale, late-phase commercial clinical trials and to make it easier and quicker to deliver commercial research in our NHS.

The NIHR MedTech and In Vitro Diagnostic Cooperatives have been set up to build expertise and capacity to help industry develop new medical technologies and provide evidence on commercially-developed in vitro diagnostic tests.