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The Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit (OCTRU) has received NIHR benchmarking results and offers excellent value for money according to the report

Gallery of 6 images representing research themes at OCTRU © Images from iStock

The Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit (OCTRU) is a partnership between NDORMS, the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences (NDS), and the Department of Oncology and is one of five registered clinical trials units in Oxford. Our hub and spoke model allows us to support a range of clinical specialties that units with a single operational structure often find more difficult to. 

The environment for clinical trials over the past couple of years has been very challenging but the OCTRU hub team led by Vicki Barber has been working hard with our partners to deliver the clinical answers that the health system needs to plan care. Each year the registered trials units that receive support from NIHR are benchmarked and the results have recently been shared. In this grouping of 23 registered units, OCTRU is partnered with the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) at Oxford. Together the two units support the third largest portfolio of studies and are the largest recipient of NIHR funding, a position held for the past 4 years. While our income is large, our average cost per project is the lowest in the group demonstrating that we offer excellent value for money. 

Delivering clinical trials requires a large and diverse team and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners and team members for all their hard work in delivering studies that matter for patients. OCTRU will be celebrating 10 years of operation in the summer and we look forward to sharing stories of how the unit has changed healthcare over that time and how we are evolving to continue to deliver in the future.

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