About Us
The NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) transforms scientific breakthroughs into diagnostic tests and life-saving treatments for patients.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research funds, enables and delivers world-leading health and social care research that improves people’s health and wellbeing and promotes economic growth.
NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) are collaborations between NHS organisations and universities. They bring together academics and clinicians to translate scientific discoveries into potential new treatments, diagnostics and technologies.
Manchester BRC is hosted by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and The University of Manchester – in partnership with five NHS trusts; Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
What is the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre?
Watch this film about our vision for driving forward health improvements and lasting change for all through creative, inclusive and proactive research.
Our vision and mission
Driving health improvements and lasting change for all through creative, inclusive and proactive research that identifies and bridges gaps between new discoveries and individualised care.
Manchester BRC’s vision is to drive personalised health and care for all.
We will:
- Embed early translational research further into our communities and localities by deepening the meaningful involvement of patients, public and civic partners.
- Build a unique national powerhouse for innovation by combining the world-leading discovery and translational science capabilities of our partnership with a strong research culture centred on a committed, diverse and inclusive workforce.
- Accelerate at scale, the impact of our research through our mature and integrated innovation pipeline to achieve measurable improvements in health and wellbeing across all sections of society in our region and beyond.
Our themes and clusters
We were awarded more than £60 million from the NIHR for 2022 to 2027 to translate scientific discoveries into new treatments, diagnostic tests, and medical technologies to improve people’s lives and reduce health inequalities in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria.
This award allows us to expand our research capacity both in terms of research themes and geographical reach to improve health outcomes across our region’s urban, rural and coastal communities.
It will enable our BRC to drive forward pioneering research within 13 different theme areas grouped into four clusters:
- Cancer: Prevention and Early Detection, Advanced Radiotherapy, Cancer Precision Medicine and Living With and Beyond Cancer.
- Inflammation: Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases, Respiratory Medicine, Dermatology, Integrative Cardiovascular Medicine.
- High-burden Under-researched Conditions: Hearing Health, Mental Health and Rare Conditions.
- Disease Complexity and Multi-morbidity: Next Generation Therapeutics, Next Generation Phenotyping and Diagnostics.
Our themes collaborate in these four clusters, to enhance partnership working and cover a wider geographical reach, enabling us to meet the clinical challenges of our time;
- Basic mechanisms of disease
- Prevention and early detection
- Person-centred therapies.
Embed, build, accelerate
Our BRC infrastructure works collaboratively to enable us to rapidly translate our scientific discoveries into new tests, treatments, devices and preventative measures to improve people’s lives and reduce health inequalities through translational and cutting-edge research.
We aim to:
- Deliver an innovative early translational research programme.
- Transform disease prevention and management at pace and scale with equity.
- Involve patients, public and practitioners throughout the research cycle to ensure a cohesive translational research workforce and a Team Science approach.
Our research will:
- Understand the illnesses most relevant to the population of our region.
- Find new ways to make correct diagnoses and treat disease.
- Discover how to prevent ill-health in people.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are crucial to achieving success and delivering our vision to drive personalised health and care for all. We recognise the value of a diverse workforce and how it can lead to greater creativity, innovation, and, ultimately, better patient and public outcomes.
Our Inclusive Research Oversight Board aims to address inclusivity and health equity in the research conducted in our BRC. Co-created with patients, citizens, community leaders, researchers and Vocal, we define inclusive research as:
Research that takes deliberate action to meet the health research needs of different people, to address barriers to inclusion and to promote environments where everyone feels included, respected and valued.
We deliver an integrated programme for patient and public involvement, engagement and participation (PPIEP) in collaboration with Vocal and our extensive networks of public, patient and community partners.
Our innovative expertise extends across our core infrastructure areas including: collaboration with industry and charity partners, digital infrastructure, children’s and young people’s research and a Core Team comprising of specialists in operational and strategic Delivery. We are committed to providing an extensive and inclusive education and training programme for our workforce and student population, promoting a Team Science/Team Research approach throughout all our work.
We will be offering a range of core funding calls and opportunities throughout 2022 – 2027 across core strategic areas. These will be announced via this website and other communication channels.