Community and Primary Care Research Centre (CPCRC)

Advancing person-centred care for the excluded and disempowered
Health carer holding hands of an elderly patient

Community and Primary Care Research Centre (CPCRC)

Advancing person-centred care for the excluded and disempowered
The Community and Primary Care Research Centre (CPCRC) is intensively research-active and has a strong proven track record of health services research. 
Our research is conducted through the involvement of practitioners and the public, who are instrumental in helping to develop focused research questions and in designing projects.
We use a range of research methods (both qualitative and quantitative), to solve pressing and often complex research problems. Our research is often directed towards those individuals who are the most excluded or disempowered, have mental health problems and have difficulty accessing services.
The CPCRC operates within the Faculty of Health and is headed up by Professor Richard Byng , who is also a GP in the Plymouth area.

Our team brings together key applied health service researchers and methodologists, lived experience experts and point-of-care practitioners.

We work to improve care within collaborating services and communities, while sharing evidence and key insights more widely.

Richard ByngProfessor Richard Byng
Director of the CPCRC and Professor in Primary Care Research

 

Research themes

Homeschooling getty
Children and young people
Prisoner sitting in front of a barred window
Criminal justice
Plymouth Dementia conferences 2016. Ian Sherriff13498909
Dementia
Woman with mobile phone
Digital access to care
Wakitaka
Global health
A group of ex offenders who are playing a role in research looking at support for prisoners with mental health problems before and on release.
Mental health
Two people exercising, looking happy
Obesity
Getty image 506200364 elderly patient with nurse
Older people
public health
Public health
Common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) underwater 
Researchers in residence
woman inhaling asthmatic cure at home. Woman is living life with chronic illness everyday and overcoming challenges with it.
Severe asthma
Bench nature social prescribing 
Social prescribing
 

In the news

primary care 
£15.5 million to continue South West health research partnership

The funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) will support the partnership, which includes the University of Plymouth

15 October 2025
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    40–50 research staff and students within the CPCRC

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    £2.2M average annual research income (three-year rolling)

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    Recent funding includes UKRI Mental Health Platform Hubs, Horizon funding, and NIHR HSDR leadership

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     A long track record of successful projects

Researchers

 

Related courses

Undergraduate

NIHR ARC South West Peninsula (PenARC)

The National Institute of Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration (PenARC) for the South West Peninsula.
PenARC is a partnership between the University of Plymouth, the University of Exeter and NHS organisations across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.
PenARC