Centre of Excellence to encourage digital health innovation while safeguarding users

A new Centre of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) in Transformative Digital Health and AI is to be established.

© Aristal/Pixabay

© Aristal/Pixabay

RADIANT is the interdisciplinary consortium behind the CERSI, which is being created with £1m funding from Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and the Office for Life Sciences.

Led by Dr Gabriella Spinelli, Reader at Brunel University London's Design School, the CERSI also involves King's College London, University College London and the University of Westminster. The universities will be joined by Imperial College NHS Trust and three key business collaborators: the consortium's co-lead Helix Data Innovation, plus venture builder Zinc and global knowledge provider BMJ Group. The Health Innovation Network of South London will also work with the Consortium.

RADIANT will address the critical need for a regulatory framework that is proportionate, evidence-based, and supportive of businesses and innovators, while ensuring that digital health products are safe, secure, inclusive, trusted, and sustainable.

The centre's work will be guided by the needs of six key stakeholder groups – patients, clinicians, innovators, regulators and policymakers, service providers, and academia – ensuring that its outputs are inclusive and actionable. The team will apply implementation science to translate research into policy action.

The team is supported by a strong advisory board, including the Association of British HealthTech Industries, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the National Institute for Health and Care Research's Healthtech Research Centres and a patient advisory group.

Dr Spinelli, who is also the director of innovation and digital health in Brunel Partners Academic Centre for Health Sciences, said: ‘The combined expertise at the intersection of design engineering, computer science, and health will drive impactful regulatory science to empower innovators and safeguard users.

‘We will work closely with other funded CERSIs to develop a complementary offer to the whole UK healthcare innovation ecosystem.'

Prof Hua Zhao, Brunel's pro vice-chancellor for research, added: 'Brunel and its consortium partners want to produce science that can become guidance for regulation. The strategic investment by Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, the MHRA and the Office for Life Sciences is fundamental to improve patient care and to boost the UK economy.'

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