About us

Who we are

The National Institute for Health and Care Research HealthTech Research Centre in Devices, digital and robotics (NIHR HRC-DDR) is one of 14 HealthTech Research Centres (HRCs) in the UK. The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) hosts the NIHR HRC-DDR.

The NIHR funds, enables and delivers world-leading health and social care research to improve people’s health and wellbeing and promote economic growth. Through the HRCs, the NIHR supports safe, effective and efficient translation of new healthcare technologies into routine care for NHS patients and follow-on social care. Our work aims to improve the efficiency and success rate of HealthTech uptake into health and social care. We provide a national service that supports partners through the innovation ecosystem and build collaborations with expert academics and clinicians from leading organisations and infrastructures.

What we do

Our services help technology developers towards regulatory approval and adoption by generating evidence across technology readiness levels (TRLs). We identify areas of unmet need and aim to support technologies that align with national strategic priorities, including digital and data-driven solutions, while improving expertise and knowledge of the medical device development pathway. 

Our strategies, programme and project work are informed by patients and the public and align with NIHR strategies for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and sustainability. Patient and public involvement and engagement is core to our programme and embedded within our research themes.

Core themes

We support technologies that align with our core themes of medical devices, data and digital, and robotics and autonomous systems. Each theme is led by experts in their field, who provide expertise and insight into innovation opportunities in these areas.

Cross-cutting themes

We work closely with our partners to accelerate technologies towards regulatory acceptance and clinical adoption by generating evidence within our cross-cutting themes, which are human factors and usability, health economics and value proposition, and regulations.

We are co-located and partnered with the Medical Devices Testing and Evaluation Centre (MD-TEC), a state-of-the-art clinical usability testing facility where technology developers evaluate their products and prototypes in realistic settings.

Learn about some of the HealthTech we have supported by reading our case studies.