Aston and Oxford launch 17.9m pound health research partnership

Aston University and the University of Oxford have launched a 17.9 million pound partnership to carry out health and care research that makes a difference to local communities.

The partnership is the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration Thames Valley, one of a network of applied research collaborations across England. It was announced in October 2025, is hosted by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and will run for five years.

What it will study

The collaboration will look at health and care across people's lives, including children and young people, people of working age and older people. Other themes include digital tools and the use of data, social care, and priorities identified by communities themselves.

Who is leading it

It is co-led by Professor Shivani Sharma of Aston Business School, who is Aston's Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, and Professor Kam Bhui CBE, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford.

"We want research to travel faster into everyday life, so that good ideas can make a difference sooner for patients, families, services and communities," Professor Sharma said.

Professor Bhui said: "By bringing together different forms of expertise and experience, we can understand the challenges facing people and services more clearly."

What applied research means

Applied research focuses on practical problems facing the NHS and social care, such as how to get people seen faster, how to support carers or how to make services work better for groups who are often left out. Findings are shared with health and care organisations so they can be used quickly.

A Birmingham university in a national role

Aston University, based in the city centre next to Millennium Point, has grown its health research in recent years, including through Aston Medical School, which opened in 2015. Taking a leading role in a collaboration based in the Thames Valley shows how research partnerships now reach well beyond a university's home city.