NIHR Clinical Research Facility: Sheffield
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2026 UKCRF Network annual conference
On Thursday 09 and Friday 10 July, members of the NIHR Sheffield CRF team attended the 21st UK Clinical Research Facility (UKCRF) Network annual conference in Dublin.
This year’s conference shined a spotlight on the diverse, cohesive research landscape north and south of the border, showcasing the diversity of research across our CRFs, and exploring the emerging opportunities in digital health, data sharing and innovation.
To find out more about the UKCRF Network, visit the UKCRF Network website.
NIHR CRF: Sheffield conference posters
Edwards_Grace_P04.15.pdfKelly_Sarah_P05.21.pdfConference attendee feedback
Conference attendee feedback
Our staff enjoyed the conference and found the speakers, focus and sessions informative and enjoyable. The conference is a great way to build on relationships with staff from around the UK and Ireland.
Some of our staff share their experiences of the event below.
This year over 590 staff from across the UK and Ireland attended the UK & Ireland CRF conference in Dublin. The “Two Irelands, Many Voices: Future-scaping Trans-National Clinical Research” event covered a wide range of topics from advanced therapies, critical care, medical devices, smart wearables, biomarkers and the future of regulation.
Speakers included; Gregory Walls, a Doctoral Student from the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, laying out the history of Irish census data which gave context to the present day data, and Dr Alexander Churchill, Deputy Director of Clinical Trials Policy, Infrastructure and International Partnerships at the Department of Health and Social Care, explaining the reasoning behind the 150 days clinical trials target and highlighting progress across different sites.
The full two day programme is available here: programme.
Our PPIE Officer submitted an abstract for a poster, which was accepted and displayed at the conference. It outlined the Sheffield approach to strengthening governance through the introduction of a standing CRF Public Advisory Group, which will feed into our Executive Meetings, keeping patient and public priorities central to our work. The poster also highlighted the intentional recruitment to the group, ensuring diverse membership, to involve people from across Sheffield with a variety of health conditions, ethnicities, ages and genders. This diversity enables the Sheffield CRF to make informed and inclusive decisions that reflect the priorities of the communities we serve.
Specific learning for our PPIE Officer attending the conference included:
A public contributor attending the conference mentioned sitting on interview panels, this could be something the Sheffield CRF take forward and look at introducing.
A lot of the PPIE groups in other areas had names like “Engage” or “Involve” rather than CRF Public Advisory Group, which were names decided by the groups. Our PPIE Officer plans to ask our standing PPIE group if they would prefer a new name for the group.
It was suggested that PPIE staff should monitor who of their public contributors volunteers for supporting different projects, to ensure opportunities are evenly advertised and those less involved have chance to in future.
Crafts suggested as a good way to get people talking/ to join in PPIE discussions
One of the speakers noted that Cardiovascular Disease affects women (37%) more than men (30%). Perhaps we can raise awareness of research in this area or do more to engage the South East Asian community who are most at risk?
A newsletter has been circulated by the Dublin Conference Team to further share the learning and is available here: conference newsletter 2026.
The next UKCRF Network conference will be entitled “The Life Cycle” and held on 8 and 9 July 2027 in Liverpool. The co-hosts for the conference will be the North-West CRF Alliance; Alder Hey, Lancashire, Liverpool and Manchester.
Grace Edwards
PPIE Officer
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