The University of Huddersfield has placed itself firmly on the national map for UK health research after welcoming Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care and Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), to its National Health Innovation Campus (NHIC). During the visit, Professor Chappell toured the campus’s flagship buildings, met senior university leaders and discussed how the institution’s approach to health and care research is producing real-world benefits for the NHS and the wider community.
For prospective students, researchers and health-focused entrepreneurs, the visit offers a useful signal: significant national attention — and national investment — is flowing into Yorkshire’s health innovation ecosystem, and the University of Huddersfield sits at the centre of it.
If you want to see these facilities for yourself, book your place at an upcoming University of Huddersfield Open Day and explore the National Health Innovation Campus in person.
Why Professor Lucy Chappell’s Visit Matters for UK Health Research
Professor Lucy Chappell occupies two of the most influential roles in British health science. As Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, she advises government ministers on research strategy and the evidence base behind health policy. As Chief Executive of the NIHR, she leads the nation’s largest funder of health and care research — the organisation behind much of the applied clinical research that shapes frontline NHS practice.
When a figure with that overview of the UK’s research landscape chooses to spend a day at a regional campus, it carries weight. The visit — hosted by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Thornton — was not simply ceremonial. Discussions centred on a practical question that sits at the heart of UK health policy: how to bridge the gap between research and development and the adoption and scaling-up of innovation, particularly for the small and growing businesses the campus is designed to support.
The University of Huddersfield is already a proven partner in this space. The NIHR supports the university’s £11 million Centre for Equity in Mental Health, a major research initiative addressing inequalities in mental health care. Speaking after the tour, Professor Thornton emphasised the value of this support and the university’s ambition to expand its work on innovation, adoption and impact alongside partners across the region and further afield.
Inside the National Health Innovation Campus: Facilities Built for Modern Healthcare
The National Health Innovation Campus brings together education, applied research and business growth within a single environment. Professor Chappell was shown around two flagship buildings: the Daphne Steele Building and the Emily Siddon Building.
The Daphne Steele Building takes its name from a pioneering figure in NHS history — Britain’s first Black matron — a fitting namesake for a facility dedicated to training a diverse, modern health workforce. The building’s design deliberately encourages interaction between students, clinicians, researchers and industry partners, reflecting a belief that the most useful innovations emerge when these groups work side by side rather than in isolation.
Hands-On Training in Radiography and Dental Care
A highlight of the tour was the state-of-the-art laboratory provision supporting the university’s recently launched healthcare degrees, including the BSc (Hons) Diagnostic Radiography and the BSc (Hons) Dental Hygiene and Dental Therapy courses. These programmes respond directly to well-documented workforce shortages in the NHS, and they train students on professional-grade equipment from the early stages of study.
For students, the practical significance is clear: rather than learning theory in a lecture theatre and encountering real equipment only on placement, they develop technical competence in environments that mirror clinical practice. That readiness matters to employers — and it matters to patients.
Interested in one of these career paths? Explore health courses at the University of Huddersfield and submit your application to join the next intake.
Education Designed Around Real Care Environments
Beyond individual laboratories, the campus is structured around interprofessional learning — the idea that future radiographers, dental professionals, nurses and allied health workers should train alongside one another, just as they will work together in the NHS. Professor Chappell highlighted the campus’s clear reach into the local community, noting that the collaboration embedded in the Daphne Steele and Emily Siddon buildings supports the future of both education and research while helping to improve patient health outcomes.
The Health Business Innovation Centre: A Home for Health Innovation
The tour also included the new Health Business Innovation Centre (HBIC), a dedicated facility for health-sector businesses. The HBIC is a pillar of the Huddersfield Health Innovation Incubator, a regional programme funded through the West Yorkshire Investment Zone that supports pre-to-early-stage and growing organisations developing solutions to improve health and wellbeing.
The model builds on a proven track record. HBIC follows the approach of the successful 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3MBIC), also located on the university campus, which has spent years demonstrating how physical proximity to academic expertise helps young companies grow faster and smarter.
Crucially, HBIC is not operating alone. Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber — the organisation responsible for spreading proven innovation across the NHS in the region — serves as an anchor tenant. That means the businesses based in the centre sit alongside the very experts who evaluate, adopt and scale health technologies within the health service.
Building a health-related product or service? Discover how the Health Business Innovation Centre can support your organisation and register your interest in tenancy or incubation.
Turning UK Health Research into NHS Impact
One of the persistent challenges in UK health research is the distance between a promising finding and routine clinical use. Excellent research often stalls before it changes practice — the well-recognised gap between invention and adoption.
The conversations during Professor Chappell’s visit addressed this challenge directly. Participants from the university and Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber examined how the campus model can shorten that distance: by placing researchers, educators, NHS innovation specialists and businesses in the same buildings, promising ideas can be evaluated, refined and spread far more quickly.
Richard Stubbs, Chief Executive of Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, captured the value of this arrangement after the visit. He described how powerful it is to have the NHS, academia and industry working side by side every day, and he characterised the NIHR as a national engine of research excellence — one that fuels the innovations spread across communities. In his view, aligning research and innovation both improves care and grows the economy across Yorkshire.
Collaboration as the Foundation of Health Innovation
A recurring theme of the visit was collaboration. Speaking after the tour, Professor Chappell described the impressive innovation taking place across the campus and its clear reach into the local community. Her observations point to something important for anyone weighing up where to study or build a health venture: the National Health Innovation Campus has been designed so that collaboration is structural, not optional.
In practice, that looks like:
- Shared buildings where university departments and external organisations occupy the same spaces.
- Joint research projects that pair academic rigour with frontline insight from NHS and industry partners.
- Placement and employment pipelines that connect students directly with regional employers.
- Business incubation that gives startups access to university expertise, equipment and networks.
This is the model national bodies increasingly want to see replicated across the country — which helps explain why the visit attracted such senior attention.
What the Visit Means for Students, Researchers and Health Entrepreneurs
For Future Students
Choosing where to study a health degree involves weighing teaching quality, facilities and employment prospects. The National Health Innovation Campus strengthens all three. Students train in newly built, professionally equipped facilities, learn from staff engaged in funded research, and study in an environment where NHS and industry partners are a visible daily presence. Graduates who have already worked in that setting enter the job market with a practical understanding of how modern healthcare teams operate.
For Researchers and Clinicians
For the research community, the visit underlines the strength of the region’s funding pipeline. With NIHR-backed initiatives such as the Centre for Equity in Mental Health already established, and with campus infrastructure built for applied studies, Huddersfield offers researchers the chance to work on questions with direct service relevance — and with access to the populations, services and partners needed to answer them.
For Health Startups and Growing Businesses
For entrepreneurs, HBIC and the wider Huddersfield Health Innovation Incubator provide something rare outside London and the South East: purpose-built space, Investment Zone-backed support and immediate adjacency to NHS innovation expertise. The visit’s focus on bridging research into adoption and scaling suggests that businesses based at HBIC will be well positioned to navigate the pathway into NHS use — often the single biggest hurdle for health innovators.
To learn more about the campus, its buildings and its research environment, explore the National Health Innovation Campus at the University of Huddersfield.
How to Get Involved with the National Health Innovation Campus
Professor Lucy Chappell’s visit to the University of Huddersfield is best understood as more than a news item — it is an invitation. Whether you are a prospective student, an academic, a clinician or a founder, there are concrete ways to engage with what is being built in Huddersfield:
- Apply to study. Health courses including diagnostic radiography and dental hygiene and dental therapy are welcoming applications — start with the university’s course pages.
- Visit the campus. Open days run throughout the year and offer direct access to staff and facilities.
- Base your business at HBIC. Early-stage and growing health organisations can register interest in incubation and tenancy.
- Partner on research. Organisations interested in collaboration can contact the university’s business and research teams.
Have questions about studying or partnering with the National Health Innovation Campus? Write to the University of Huddersfield — and if you have visited the campus or studied here, share your experiences in the comments below.
Final Thoughts
The visit by Professor Lucy Chappell confirms what the University of Huddersfield has been building towards: a campus where education, research and enterprise operate as one system, delivering benefits to students, businesses and patients alike. For UK health research, the lesson is equally clear. The country’s biggest healthcare challenges will not be solved in isolated silos. They will be addressed in places like the National Health Innovation Campus — where the people who train the workforce, fund the science, deliver the care and build the products sit in the same buildings, working towards the same goal of better health for the communities they serve.
