2.8. Senior OUH NMAHPs are being supported to undertake the NIHR-AoMRC Clinician Researcher Credentialing Framework.1

2.9. Research Capacity and Capability development in the Trust is supported by four Divisional Research leads who are externally funded through an academic appointment, either Oxford Brookes or Oxford University, the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and/or R&D income. The return on these investments is in excess of £2,500,000 in the 18 months since the appointments.

3.1. A total of 1667 OUH-hosted clinical research studies were active (i.e. open to recruitment, recruiting or in follow-up) during 2025-26. This is a small increase (1%) compared to 2024-25 (1647). 84% (1402) of these active studies were on the NIHR portfolio2 (the same as last year), 497 of which reported recruitment in 2025-26, the third highest of all NHS Trusts in England, recruiting a total of 10,103 participants. The number of portfolio studies currently open to recruitment or recruiting was 745; the other 657 had completed recruitment and were in the follow-up phase.

3.2. Examples of recent high-impact research studies supported by the Oxford BRC are included in the Appendix.

3.3. The number of studies that are Hosted (i.e. OUH is the NHS organisation providing the clinical environment, capabilities and patient care) and Sponsored (i.e. OUH takes legal responsibility for the conduct of the study, as well as hosting it) by the Trust are shown in Table 3.