Professor Richard Hobbs CBE FMedSci
Director, NIHR Oxford and Thames Valley Applied Research Collaboration
My research interests mainly focus on digital health and cardiovascular epidemiology and clinical trials, especially relating to vascular and stroke risk, heart failure.
At the University of Oxford I have developed and led one of the largest and most highly ranked centres for academic primary care globally. Over my (long) career I have made major contributions to growing primary care academic capacity in the UK, in terms of both researchers and research networks. I think that this career contribution – highlighting the importance of primary care, population health, and disease prevention to health systems, and raising the capacity of academic primary care to answer important questions that improve the care of the patients we serve – is what motivated me on my career path, and still does. So much of what we do is uncertain and we should strive for greater clarity through scientific enquiry followed by consistent and rapid implementation of the best evidence that emerges.
I have authored over 600 peer reviewed publications, have an h-index of 102, with over 96000 citations, making me one of the world’s most cited primary care academics. I have an ‘outstanding track record’ in cardiovascular research, designing and delivering trials that changed international guidelines and practice, especially in the areas of stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (BAFTA, SAFE, and SMART trials), heart failure burden and diagnosis (ECHOES and REFER trials), and contributing to studies in hypertension self-management (TASMINH series).