Our partnership is a powerful blend of academic and health organisations across the West Midlands who boast an impressive array of research capability, expertise and world-leading practice.
Forged as the ‘city of a thousand trades’, Birmingham’s innovative and industrious past combined with its cultural heritage give the UK’s Second City a unique character. The city’s motto, ‘Forward’, is grounded in the pioneering work of its illustrious forefathers and continued by the gamechangers of today.
With a long-established history of collaborative working between academia, clinicians, industry and patients, Birmingham is one of the best places to study, work and invest in the life sciences sector.
Birmingham’s strengths are in high demand within the health and life sciences sector and include:
Access to a unique population
Birmingham is a ‘world within a city’, representing the global population in terms of its ethnic profile and socioeconomic demographics – and the wider West Midlands is home to a young, stable, diverse population of around 6m people. This community can support projects of significant scale, including trials and device testing. Significantly, we’re able to recruit ethnically-diverse representation in the majority of our clinical trials – meaning we’re not just perfectly placed to deliver representative research, but are actively doing it already.
Digital healthcare innovation
We are at the forefront of health data – hosting the HDR UK Midlands Regional Network at the University of Birmingham. Our member University Hospitals Birmingham has the longest-established electronic health record systems in the NHS, and is designated an NHS Global Digital Exemplar. With the expertise to use both technology and data in a meaningful way, we are trusted by patients to collect, store and analyse their data.
International clinical trials leadership
Through the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU) and Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit (BCTU), we have one of Europe’s largest clinical trials portfolios – with experience from small Phase I trials of new therapies right through to international multi-centred randomised trials. We can also advise on how best to include patients in research – from participation to involvement in trial design.
A collaborative, co-located infrastructure
Our unique concentration of prestigious institutions makes Birmingham one of the few global cities truly equipped to deliver co-located, integrated expertise. Our partners hold major awards from funders including NIHR, (Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, Applied Research Centre, Clinical Research Facility), Cancer Research UK, Cancer Institute, Wellcome Trust, and HDR UK.
