New NIHR Research Professorship
29th January 2025
Professor Lorna Fraser has been awarded a prestigious National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Professorship.
The NIHR Research Professorships scheme funds and supports research leaders of the future. Each will receive a five-year award of up to £2 million. This includes three support posts, research costs and access to a leadership and development programme.
The 5-year award allows outstanding academics to work at professorial level based at universities, in partnership with an NHS organisation or another provider of health, public health and/or care services.
Professor Lorna Fraser’s project will seek to improve care for children with life-limiting conditions. The number of children living with conditions that may shorten their lives is increasing, with children from minoritised ethnic groups and living in areas of high deprivation particularly affected. Parents frequently become full time healthcare providers for their children, and report issues with fragmented care, battles with services and concerns over lack of support to ensure safety for their child. Although advances in medicine have enabled these children to survive longer, the healthcare system has not developed in parallel, and families are often left unsupported.
Through this NIHR Professorship award, Professor Fraser aims to assess and map the way services and support is delivered to children with life-shortening conditions and their families, and then devise new pathways to make care easier to access, more joined up, inclusive and of a higher quality.
“I am really delighted to have been awarded one of this year’s NIHR Professor Awards. This gives us the opportunity to undertake important research with our most vulnerable children and families to improve the care they receive from health and social care, focusing on helping them to thrive not just survive.”
Professor Lorna Fraser, Professor of Palliative Care and Child Health at the Cicely Saunders Institute, Kings College London
Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care, said: “The NIHR Research Professorship is one of our most prestigious career awards. The award funds outstanding researchers to help address the major health and care issues of today and in the future, strengthening health, public health and care research leadership at the highest academic levels. I congratulate this cohort and look forward to seeing the impact their research will have on people and communities.”