NIHR Comprehensive Clinical Research Network

The NIHR Comprehensive Clinical Research Network (CCRN) was created as part of the government’s research and development strategy, “Best Research for Best Health” to provide a world-class infrastructure for clinical trials in all areas of disease and clinical need within the NHS.

The aims of CCRN are:

To ensure that patients and healthcare professionals from all parts of the country and from all areas of healthcare can take part in and benefit from clinical research
To improve the quality, speed and coordination of clinical research by removing the barriers to research within the NHS
To streamline and performance manage NHS support for clinical studies to ensure that the costs of research are met in a timely and efficient manner
To unify and streamline administrative procedures associated with regulation, governance, reporting and approvals
To strengthen research collaboration with industry and ensure that the NHS can meet the health research needs of industry
To further integrate health research and patient care.

In order to achieve these aims, CCRN will:

Establish and fund an excellent clinical research infrastructure to support a high quality portfolio of clinical research studies and facilitate patient participation into studies
Provide those NHS Service Support Costs which were previously provided through other NHS R&D funding streams
Provide and deploy resources for research management in order to ensure that the research portfolio is delivered to the highest standards of research governance.

CCRN consists of a number of Comprehensive Local Research Networks (CLRNs) which will be managed locally and will support participation in the national portfolio of UKCRN studies.

More information about Comprehensive Local Research Networks is available here.

CCRN will be implemented over a two-year period which began in April 2007. The Department of Health has developed a detailed Implementation Plan which is updated on a regular basis.

The latest revision of the NIHR Implementation Plans is available here (January 2008)

The UKCRN Coordinating Centre has been tasked with overseeing the implementation of CCRN.

NIHR Clinical Research Network Portfolio
CCRN will work together with the six Topic Specific Clinical Research Networks and the Primary Care Research Network to support a high quality national portfolio of clinical trials and other well-designed studies.

The UKCRN Coordinating Centre is identifying a provisional list of ongoing clinical research studies that may be eligible to be supported by the Comprehensive Research Network in topics other than those already included through the Topic Specific and Primary Care Research Networks. Studies will be listed by disease area/topic using the classification codes used in the UKCRC Health Research Analysis. Multi-centre and single-centre clinical trials and other well-designed studies are being included. Please note that in the interim the CCRN portfolio is provisional, and work is still being carried out to confirm eligibility.

If you are involved in any studies which you feel meet the Department of Health eligiblity criteria and which do not currently appear on the UKCRN Portfolio Database, please complete the Initial Study Registration Proforma (available with a description below) and email this to portfolio@ukcrn.org.uk

Please contact portfolio@ukcrn.org.uk if any details on the database are incorrect.