Plymouth Clinical Research Showcase (PCRS): Advancing Healthcare through Careers and Collaboration

One day conference on Thursday 19 June 2025 at Home Park Stadium, Plymouth
JCRO conference
 

  • Home Park Stadium, Plymouth Argyle Football Club, Plymouth PL2 3DQ

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We are delighted to invite you to the Plymouth Clinical Research Showcase: Advancing Healthcare through Careers and Collaboration, organised by the Plymouth Joint Clinical Research Office (JCRO), in collaboration with University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHPNT) and Plymouth Institute of Health and Care Research (PIHR), University of Plymouth (UoP).
This exciting new event will celebrate current collaborative clinical research conducted between UHPNT and UoP, and importantly foster new partnerships and opportunities.
There will be two external keynote speakers: (1) Natalie Owen, Head of NIHR Infrastructure, Department of Health and Social Care and (2) Professor Hugh Montgomery, Chair of Intensive Care Medicine, University College London.
The morning session will be a series of invited talks from inspirational local leaders and innovators. After a networking buffet lunch, the afternoon will host a variety of breakout sessions, including PPI and academic training.
There will be a poster session (to be judged) running all day, and time to visit stands from key regional stakeholders promoting their work and services.
Whether you are new to research, an early career researcher or fully established in your career, there will be something for everyone at this event. Plymouth Clinical Research Showcase is an inclusive event and we welcome attendees from all professions and all grades.
Refreshments, including lunch, will be provided.

Please register your attendance via the above link.

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Outline programme for the day

08:45–09:30 | Registration and coffee – optional (pre-booked) short stadium tour
09:30–09:45 | Welcome
09:45–10:30 | Keynote presentation: Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE, Chair of Intensive Care Medicine, University College London – 'Wandering and Wondering'
10:30–11:00 | Professor Dan Martin – 'Twenty Years of Thinking About Oxygen!'
11:00–11:30 | Coffee break – opportunity to visit trade and stakeholder stands
11:30–12:30 | Invited local speakers
• Dr Ashwin Dhanda – 'Harnessing Plymouth's Strengths to Advance Alcohol Research'
• Dr Susie Pearce (title tbc)
12:30–13:30 | Lunch and networking – opportunity to visit trade, stakeholder stands and poster presentations
13:30–14:45 | Breakout sessions – opportunity to attend two of the sessions below (you'll be invited to select your preference soon after booking)
1. PPI Essentials: Involving patients and the public in the design and delivery of your research
2. Juggling Identities, Balancing Roles: The Journey to Research Independence
3. Inspiring NMAHP Research in Practice
4. Digital Health
5. TriNetX
14:45–15:15 | Coffee break – opportunity to visit trade and stakeholder stands
15:15–16:00 | Keynote presentation: Dr Natalie Owen, Head of NIHR Infrastructure DHSC – 'Tackling the Big Health Challenges: the Role of Research in the Transformation of the NHS'
16:00–16:15 | Poster awards and conference round-up
16:15–16:40 | End – optional (pre-booked) short stadium tour
 

Keynote speakers

  • Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE, Chair of Intensive Care Medicine, University College London

    Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE

  • Dr Natalie Owen, Head of NIHR Infrastructure DHSC

    Dr Natalie Owen

Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE

Hugh obtained a 1st class BSc (Cardiorespiratory Physiology/ Neuropharmacology) in 1984 and his medical degree (1987). He completed specialist training in General Internal Medicine, Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine (ICM), and is now a consultant Intensivist in north London.
Hugh obtained his MDRes in 1997 and is Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University College London (UCL) where he also directs the Centre for Human Health and Performance. He has published >800 papers (many related to hypoxic adaptation; paracrine renin-angiotensin systems; and the physiological responses to extreme environments), was science lead for the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition, and has won eight national and international awards. He chaired the UK National COVID Critical Care Committee during the pandemic.
Hugh consulted in the field of artificial intelligence for DeepMind Health. He has patented a treatment for cancer wasting and prevention of injury in stroke, and a new technology for patient hydration. He has developed a novel low-power air-cleaning system (aircon and mask) for the removal of pollutants, and a new asthma inhaler.
Being a commissioner, and then co-lead, on two Lancet Commissions on Human Health and Climate Change, he now co-chairs the 47-country Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. He has written and lectured extensively on the subject; was appointed London Leader by Greater London Authority’s Sustainable Development Commission; attended many of the international ‘COP’ negotiations; and leads the children’s climate education programme ‘Project Genie’.
In 2023, he was awarded the OBE in art for his work on climate change. In 2024, he founded the non-profit, 'Real Zero' to drive the economics of emissions reductions.
Hugh held a commercial diving licence, and has been an archaeological diver – being part of the team that raised the Mary Rose (Henry VIII's flagship). He has also been an amateur high-altitude mountaineer and ultramarathon runner. He wrote the award-winning children’s books, The Voyage of the Arctic Tern and Cloudsailors (both by Walker Books/Candlewick). His first thriller, Control, was published by Bonnier in 2019. His next, BoomBust, is in development. He wrote and presented the five Royal Institution Christmas Lectures of 2007, and Who Sank the Mary Rose? a year later. He initiated the international documentary The Story of Us, and another on climate change and flooding (2021).

Dr Natalie Owen

Natalie is Head of NIHR Research Infrastructure in the Science, Research and Evidence Directorate at the Department of Health and Social Care.
She has worked in various roles commissioning and managing of large programmes of research and research infrastructure for the last ten years. She previously led on a range of portfolios across the Policy Research Programme, working at the interface between research evidence and policymaking, including healthy weight, older people and frailty, palliative and end of life care and screening, using her experience of commissioning Policy Research Units to move to research infrastructure in 2022.
She also co-led the first strategic framework for research on multiple long-term conditions (MLTC) across the NIHR and set up two large-scale programmes on clusters of conditions and one using system engineering to look at innovations to the health and care system for people living with MLTC.

Other speakers

  • Professor Mark Hamilton, Associate Medical Director for Quality Improvement and Clinical Transformation, St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Medical School

    Professor Mark Hamilton

  • Professor Robert Fern, Executive Dean, Faculty of Health

    Professor Robert Fern

  • Professor Daniel Martin OBE

    Professor Daniel Martin OBE

  • Dr Ashwin Dhanda, Consultant Hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit in Plymouth

    Dr Ashwin Dhanda

  • Susie Pearce, Director of the South West Clinical Schools

    Dr Susie Pearce

Professor Mark Hamilton
Mark undertook his training at St. George’s Hospital Medical School and qualified in 1994. Since 2006, he has been a Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Medical School. Alongside this, Mark became a member of the Governing Body of Surrey Downs CCG in 2013 and in 2016 a member of the Governing Body of Lewisham CCG. In April 2017, Mark was appointed as a part-time Medical Director for CSH Surrey, an organisation that was the first of its type in the country. From this, he moved to become Executive Clinical Director of the Surrey Heartlands ICS Academy. In 2014, Mark became the Clinical Director for Adult Critical care and the Clinical Lead for the Perioperative Assessment & Planning Unit at St George’s, before being appointed as the Associate Medical Director for Quality Improvement and Clinical Transformation in 2016. He is also the Co-Director of Evidence-based Perioperative Medicine.

Professor Robert Fern
Bob did his PhD at University College London, publishing eight primary-author papers from the thesis. He then moved to Yale University in the US to work with Stephen Waxman, moving up from postdoctoral fellow to junior faculty over five years before moving to the University of Washington in Seattle as a founding member of the Neurology Department under Bruce Ransom. Four years later Bob moved back to the UK as Reader in Neuroscience at the University of Leicester, taking promotion to Professor in 2008 before making his last career move here to Plymouth in 2013.
Bob's research has focused on acquired brain injury, in particular cerebral palsy, stroke and multiple sclerosis, looking at early events in the development of pathology in the hope of interrupting brain injury cascades. In a two-author article in Nature in 2005 he discovered the presence of NMDA-type glutamate receptors on oligodendrocyte cells in the brain, and these proteins are now recognised as key mediators of brain injury and disease. His work is currently being translated in early clinical trials conducted in collaboration with laboratories around the world.

Professor Daniel Martin OBE
Daniel is Professor of Perioperative and Intensive Care Medicine at the University of Plymouth and a consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. He has a PhD in applied physiology from University College London and his main research interest is focused on the physiology and clinical implications of too much or too little oxygen. He has been involved in several research expeditions to high altitude and in 2007 summited Mount Everest with the Xtreme Everest team. Daniel is chief investigator for the UK-ROX trial evaluating conservative oxygen therapy in mechanically ventilated patients and the EXAKT sub-study to assess the accuracy of pulse oximeters in patients with different skin tones. He is also a chief investigator of the EXALT trial, evaluating an exercise intervention around the time of liver transplantation. He is the editor in chief of the Journal of the Intensive Care Society and in 2016 was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for services to the prevention of infectious diseases.

Dr Ashwin Dhanda
Ashwin is a clinical academic hepatologist with an interest in alcohol-related liver disease. He trained in gastroenterology and hepatology in the South West of England including a PhD at the University of Bristol investigating immune biomarkers to predict survival of people with alcohol-related hepatitis. He has been a Consultant Hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit in Plymouth since 2019 and has established a research group working on alcohol-related liver disease. Ashwin’s projects range from qualitative research understanding patient experience to clinical trials of treatment for alcohol use disorder. He leads the NIHR-funded ARMS-Hub partnership, which is developing interdisciplinary research to tackle stigma in alcohol-related liver disease.

Dr Susie Pearce
Susie has been a nurse for over 30 years. She did an undergraduate degree in Nursing at King's College London and since then has been passionate about both research, practice and transforming care. She has found a way to navigate a career across these areas both in London (across a number of organisations but mostly at UCLH NHST Foundation Trust) and now at the University of Plymouth. Susie is a cancer nurse by clinical background and for her PhD undertook a longitudinal narrative study of young adults with cancer at UCL. Most of her research is in cancer and care of people at the end of life, including research in care homes. Susie has spent a lot of her career supporting the development of research and supporting nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in developing research careers. She currently leads the NHSE Funded Developing a Research Skilled Workforce project and is the Director of the South West Clinical Schools.
 
JCRO

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