BRIGHTON AND SUSSEX UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS NHS TRUST

Their core work

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is a UK clinical research partner embedded in active hospital operations, combining direct patient care with applied health research. Their H2020 work focuses on patient empowerment, digital health interventions, and improving care models for vulnerable populations — specifically people living with HIV and high-risk newborns. They bring clinical expertise and real-world implementation environments to research consortia, enabling projects to test and evaluate interventions directly with patients. Their strength lies in bridging research evidence and frontline clinical practice, particularly in areas where family involvement and behavioural change are central to outcomes.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their early H2020 work (2015–2020), the Trust led research centred on HIV, AIDS, mHealth technology, and patient empowerment — coordinating a major RIA project that applied health technology assessment methods to digital tools for people living with chronic infectious disease. Their more recent participation (2021–2025) has shifted toward neonatal intensive care, with a focus on humanising care environments, involving families in clinical settings, and understanding the equity implications of implementation. The thread connecting both periods is a consistent interest in under-served patient populations, family and community involvement in care, and measuring the real-world value of health interventions.

The Trust appears to be broadening from infectious disease digital health into family-centred care models for neonatal settings, suggesting growing interest in humanisation of clinical environments and implementation equity across vulnerable populations.

How they like to work

The Trust has taken on both the coordinator role (leading EmERGE with a €870,878 budget) and a participant role (joining RISEinFAMILY), showing they can anchor a consortium or contribute as a specialist clinical partner. Their network of 26 partners across 12 countries suggests comfort with large, internationally diverse consortia rather than small bilateral collaborations. As an NHS Trust, they are most valuable to partners who need access to a real clinical environment, patient populations, and implementation pathways within the UK health system.

The Trust has collaborated with 26 unique partners across 12 countries over two projects, indicating a genuinely international reach despite being a single NHS site. Their network spans both the health research and research excellence pillars, suggesting connections to both academic and clinical institutions across Europe.

What sets them apart

As an NHS Trust rather than a university or research institute, Brighton and Sussex brings something most academic partners cannot: direct access to active clinical populations, established clinical pathways, and the operational realities of a large public health system. This makes them particularly valuable for projects that need to move beyond lab or pilot settings into real-world evaluation and implementation. Their demonstrated capacity to coordinate an EU project — not just participate — signals genuine research management capability alongside clinical expertise.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EmERGE
  The Trust coordinated this €870,878 RIA project — a significant leadership role for an NHS Trust — evaluating a mobile health platform for HIV patients using co-design and health technology assessment methods across multiple countries.
• RISEinFAMILY
  Reflects the Trust's pivot into neonatal care and humanisation of clinical environments, joining an international alliance to implement family-integrated care in NICUs and assess its cost-effectiveness and equity implications.