HOME NEWS UCL PARTNERS VIDEO ABOUT US RESEARCH PROGRAMMES ACADEMIC STRATEGY YALE-UCL COLLABORATION CONTACT

ABOUT US

Summary

• UCL Partners brings together world-class medical researchers and clinicians from University College London (UCL) and four NHS hospital Trusts: Moorfields, UCLH, Royal Free and Great Ormond Street, to create Europe’s largest and strongest academic health science partnership.
• UCL Partners will work to advance medical research, quality patient care and education. We aim to improve the health of Londoners, share our scientific knowledge with the world, and train an internationally renowned, caring workforce focused on academic, clinical and educational excellence.
• Our approach is different to the traditional model of medical researchers working with hospitals to deliver new treatments; our focus is on research driven by patients and their needs, and on how we roll out treatments that give the greatest benefit to the greatest number, whilst making our health services more efficient and affordable.
• The strategic development, funding and delivery of UCL Partners’ services and research programmes are driven by a board of directors, comprised of representatives from each of the partner institutions.
• UCL Partners will be part of London’s new Global Biomedicine Hub and will promote a strategic approach to medical research and healthcare. By linking experts from different specialist institutions to share their knowledge and expertise, UCL Partners will advance scientific knowledge and ensure its healthcare benefits are passed to patients as quickly as possible.

Our Vision and Values

By bringing together world-class researchers and clinicians, our aim is to create Europe’s strongest academic health science partnership focused on preventing and treating major diseases that affect the populations in London, the UK and worldwide.

Evidence from other countries shows the benefits of bringing together researchers and clinicians from different institutions. These partnerships have become hubs of innovation, with clinicians and researchers creating ‘spin-off’ companies that generate health, wealth and jobs for local economies.

UCL Partners will boost investment in research, strengthen Britain’s international competitiveness in healthcare, make our health system more productive and, most importantly, improve patient care.

London – centre of medical expertise

London has strong foundations on which to build an academic health science partnership. For over 150 years, its medical institutions have demonstrated excellence in education, specialist care, and research and development.

London is an important centre for biomedical research, and its educational institutions attract almost a third of the country’s healthcare students. Its diverse population makes it an ideal location for research into tackling health inequality.

London is also home to more professional and regulatory health care bodies than any other city in the world. The opportunity for UCL Partners to collaborate with London’s many life sciences, healthcare, and medical equipment companies will help foster research and commercial activities.

Timeline

• The five partners announced their intention to form UCL Partners in August 2008, and began the process of establishing structures and determining priorities for collaborative activity across research, education and clinical quality activities.
• Professor Sir Cyril Chantler was appointed as the first Chair of UCL Partners in February 2009.
• UCL Partners was officially designated as one of the UK’s first academic health science centres by the UK Department of Health in March 2009.
• Key strategic appointments were made in summer 2009 including Professor David Fish as Managing Director and seven Programme Directors.
• An alliance between UCL, UCL Partners, Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital to improve global health through scientific research, clinical and educational collaboration was announced in October 2009.
• The UCL Partners academic strategy and key research priorities were agreed in November 2009.

A World Class Partnership

UCL Partners comprises University College London (UCL), Moorfields, UCLH, Royal Free and Great Ormond Street. These organisations are already renowned for their world class research and treatment. According to the independent body ESI, which assesses an organisation according to the number of highly-cited publications it produces, UCL Partners is: first in the world for research into ophthalmology; first in Europe and second in the world for neuroscience; first in Europe for clinical medicine; 2nd in Europe for immunology.

University College London

University College London (UCL) is one of the world’s top 20 universities, and is the best university for health research in the UK. It is the most respected institute for neuroscience in Europe, with six of the world’s 20 leading neuroscientists.

Research Case Study

A young woman confined to a wheelchair for seven years is walking again after undergoing a lengthy experimental procedure at UCL’s Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience. Tiny filaments were implanted in her brain and an electrical current used to interrupt the signals that were sending her muscles into spasm.

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust

Great Ormond Street hospital for Children NHS Trust (GOSH) is a world-class children’s research hospital, with the broadest range of paediatric specialists in the UK. It is also home to a recently awarded Specialist Biomedical Research Centre.

GOSH is the UK’s largest children’s partnership for heart problems, brain surgery, rental transplantation, gene therapy and, with UCLH, children’s cancer services.

Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Moorfields, together with the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, is the oldest and largest partnerships for ophthalmic treatment, teaching, and research in Europe and America.

More patients in the UK attend Moorfields than any other eye hospital or clinic, and Moorfields has provided training for over half the ophthalmologists practicing in the UK.

The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust

The Royal Free has one of the most diverse clinical transplant units in Europe and a major adult bone marrow transplant programme. Researchers at the Royal Free have also pioneered new biomaterial for bypass grafts, liver transplants and plastic surgery.

National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, scientists and clinicians are planning Europe’s first laryngeal transplant.

University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has created one of the largest partnerships for biomedical research in Europe through its work with UCL. Together, they have a greater breadth of medical research expertise than any other university or NHS trust in the UK.

Our Mission: Research, Quality Care and Education

Research

UCL Partners’ initial research priorities are divided into a number of key programme areas:

• Infectious Diseases
• Neurological Disorders
• Eyes and Vision
• Cardiovascular Health
• Children’s Health
• Women’s Health
• Immunology and Transplantation

Our focus reflects both our existing strengths and our desire to respond to today’s biggest health challenges.

Among the research priorities over the next five years are:

• Advancing gene and stem cell therapy to treat conditions of the eye such as retinitis pigmentosa and age related macular degeneration
• Improving diagnosis and treatment of dementia and stroke
• Improving maternity care – including the outcome of birth for mother and baby, the efficiency of services, and family satisfaction
• Developing, piloting and implementing a programme designed to help children and teenagers maintaining a healthy weight.
• Integrating the care of patients with heart conditions from childhood through to adulthood, and improving the outcomes for those with congenital heart disease
• Reducing the side-effects of and death rates from infections brought in from overseas
• Developing and implementing new treatments for immunodeficiency, and for infections acquired when a person’s immune system is damaged

Further programme areas will be agreed as the partnership develops.

Quality Care

UCL Partners seeks to be a world-leader in providing patient care. To raise the quality of care across the partnership. A UCL partners Clinical Quality Directorate has been established.

Four broad areas of initial priority have been identified: (i) supporting the programme themes;
(ii) assisting partner NHS trusts to deliver the quality agenda;
(iii) extending the benefits of quality improvement beyond hospital into primary care and population health;
(iv) building healthcare leadership and benchmarking through international collaboration

Education and Training

UCL Partners will play an important role in education and training, preparing clinicians to work in Britain and overseas. Our education programme seeks to create a culture in which learning flourishes, leadership is encouraged, and commitment to service excellence is assured.

UCL Partners will offer an integrated education and training programme for clinicians and allied health professionals, which will be the responsibility of UCL Partners’ Health Sciences Education Deanery.

Initial priorities will include:

• a common HR approach to clinical academic training appointments and a single register of all clinical academic trainees working across the partnership will be developed.
• Development of a higher degree in translational clinical medicine for doctors, nurses and allied health professionals across the partnership.
• Development of a innovative and distinctive approaches to academic education to reflect the shift towards community delivered services in close liaison with local NHS Primary Care Trusts, NHS London, and community mental health services.

UCL Partners – our structure

The governing body, UCL Partners Ltd, is a company limited by guaranteed. The governance arrangements consist of:

• Board led by an independent chair, Sir Cyril Chantler
• An executive group comprising the four chief executives of the four NHS Trusts, the UCL Vice-Provost (health), the UCL Research Dean and the Managing Director of UCL Partners
• Internationally-renowned clinical academics to direct UCL Partners’ programmes for research, service delivery and education

Building a network of medical research

UCL Partners will encourage the involvement of local, national and international members to help develop its research, service and educational objectives.

Membership has been sought from local NHS organisations and higher education institutions with links to one or more of the founding partners.

The USA’s Yale University is UCL Partner’s first international member. Together, Yale and UCL Partners will pursue 10 biomedical research projects, initially in cardiovascular biology and medicine. The projects will receive funding from the National Institute of Health in the USA and from British funding agencies, and are likely to attract industry investment and philanthropic donations.

A joint PhD programme and student and staff exchange will be established between Yale and UCL Partners to further education and research.

UCL Partners – our people

Chair
Sir Cyril Chantler is UCL Partner’s chair. He is the former Chairman of the King’s Fund and of the Board of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, and the Clinical Advisory Group for NHS London. He currently chairs the Beit Memorial Fellowships Board. Cyril Chantler was Dean of the Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ Medical and Dental Schools and was the Children Nationwide Medical Research Fund Professor of Paediatric Nephrology until his retirement in 2000. He was also Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of London from 19997-2000. He received a knighthood for services to medicine in 1996.

Managing Director
Professor David Fish last post was Medical Director for the Specialist Hospitals within UCLH, responsible for the provision of neurosciences, women’s health, cardiovascular disease and dentistry, as well as services at UCLH for cancer and the care of children and young people. He has also been Professor of Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology at UCL since 2000. In 2008 he became Chair of Monitor’s Medical Director’s Advisory Group, supporting clinical engagement to improve health care management across Foundation Trusts. In 2006 he became a fellow of the British Association of Medical Managers, and is committed to recognising medical leadership as a full time specialty.

Programme Directors

Child Health
Professor David Goldblatt is Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology and Head of the Immunobiology Unit at the UCL Institute of Child Health, as well as a Consultant Paediatric Immunologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust. He is also the Director of Clinical Research and Development for the joint Institution and Director of its affiliated National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Specialist Biomedical Research Centre.

Eyes and vision
Professor Peng Khaw is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Professor of Glaucoma and Ocular Healing at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. Professor Khaw is also Director of the affiliated National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Specialist Biomedical Research Centre.

Immunology and transplantation
Professor Hans Stauss is Clinical Director of Immunology, Endocrinology and Diabetes at the Royal Free Hospital, as well as Head of the UCL Immunology Centre focussed on Cancer Immunology and Immunodeficiency.

Infectious diseases
Professor Deenan Pillay is Head of the UCL Research Department of Infection, and Honorary Consultant Medical Virologist at UCLH. In addition he is Head of HIV and Antivirals at the Centre for Infections, Health Protection Agency and Theme Lead for Infectious Diseases in the UCLH/UCL Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre. His research interests are in antiviral therapy, particularly for HIV, antiviral drug resistance, and molecular epidemiology of HIV spread.

Neurological disorders
Professor Alan Thompson is Director of the UCL Institute of Neurology and a Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery. He is also Deputy-Director of the UCL/UCLH Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre.

Women’s health
Professor Judith Stephenson is Margaret Pyke Professor of Sexual & Reproductive Health at the UCL Institute for Women's Health. She is also Head of the UCL Research Department of Reproductive Health, and holds Honorary Consultant contracts with UCLH in Women's Health and with Camden Primary Care Trust in Public Health.