The Faculty of Medicine leads learning and discovery across the lifecourse; we are ranked 61st in the World University rankings for medicine. Our close relationship with University Hospital Southampton provides a vibrant environment for discovery and translational research leveraging interdisciplinary collaborations focusing on major health challenges. Patient and public engagement ensures our research has relevance and as founding members of the Wessex Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre, we work across a diverse health ecosystem to ensure our research and education delivers real world impact.
Southampton Medical School was established over 50 years ago and has maintained a close partnership with University Hospital Southampton (UHS). Educating tomorrow’s doctors is a primary responsibility and our students learn throughout their courses about the importance of research; health data is key to our research ambitions. UHS is an NHS Global digital exemplar, the UHS/UoS partnership will develop and host one of four national NHS secure data environment hubs. “Data and Society” is a key theme in our Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.
The Social Data Foundation partnership between University of Southampton, University Hospital Southampton and Southampton City creates an environment to improve health through research and access to the University supercomputer (IRIDIS) provides sector leading capacity for data processing.
The Faculty of Medicine comprises five schools:
Our research excellence includes discovery across the lifecourse in primary care and public health including musculoskeletal disease and nutrition, basic discovery research translating through pre-clinical and clinical trials to impactful treatments and an increasing focus on early detection and prevention.
The interdisciplinary Data Science Group sits within the School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education and Data Science is one of the key research themes in the Primary Care Research Centre.
Our group has access to several large databases and uses traditional statistics and artificial intelligence algorithms to address some of the most pressing health issues of our time. The team includes health and social care workers, data scientists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, engineers, environmental scientists, sociologists, psychologists, health economists alongside patients and public members.
Our world-leading research centres combine research expertise across Medicine, the University and industry.
The Institute for Medical Innovation is a new research centre that aims to catapult research forward, bringing better prevention and treatments to patients much faster that has been possible before. The novelty is co-housing clinicians and medical researchers with engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists and chemists right next to our hospital to springboard collaborative development of real-world solutions. We will address major and persistent medical problems: cancer, dementia, sight loss, lung disease and infections such as Covid, though a unified 4D research strategy: Discovery, Data, Devices and then Delivery into the NHS. Cross-disciplinary appointments particularly around the Data workstream will interrogate both local and regional datasets to identify drivers of disease, and harness AI approaches to improve the diagnostic process, building on the significant activity already in this field in Southampton.
The power of modern engineering and computational methods, which permit unprecedented acceleration of research, will be applied to understand disease and identify solutions by world-leading teams of scientists. Rapid impact within the NHS and beyond will be delivered by the embedded business entrepreneur office and our joint strategy with the hospital. This dynamic approach builds on the University of Southampton’s rich heritage in engineering and computer sciences, the strong track record in research that benefits patients, and the very close relationship with our hospital. The centre will bring together a unique collection of expertise to springboard engineering developments into better health.