Lifetime achievement

Professor James Batchelor, Director of the Clinical Informatics Unit, has been shortlisted for the Christine Pierre Clinical Trials Lifetime Achievement award, which recognises those who have made a major impact on the world of clinical trials over their career, have influenced the direction the industry is moving in and left a legacy. James has devoted many years to the clinical trials industry since setting up the Cancer Research Network locally over 20 years ago. From this, James discovered there was no web-based systems for the correct information to be reported back to the NIHR coordinating centre. This led to the idea of building a collaborative research environment with real-time data, which today is known as EDGE, now utilised on a global scale and within 80% of the NHS throughout the UK. Over the years James has directed the unit to now specialise in more than just EDGE, by offering products and services that support clinical research on an international scale. Our department is supporting over 100,000 research projects working across 36 countries.

Our unit’s services fill in the missing gaps in countries both in the developed world but also in the developing world. This is to ensure that there exists every opportunity for clinical research to be conducted internationally and with different groups and populations around the world. James quotes “I am very excited that, as a group, we are able to support this vision of a global research environment for clinical trials and improving the outcomes for patients globally”.  

James plans to continue to support more and more global clinical and health informatics programmes, everything from EDGE through to the development of open source electronic medical records, whilst advancing the informatics from an education perspective for both clinical and non-clinical staff. CIRU will ensure that digital is at the heart of the way we deliver modern medicine and modern care in the future.

The winner will be announced on the 4 November at the Clinical Trials Europe Virtual event. You can cast your vote for the winner here or for more information check out the official write up on James here.