News and impact

NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Leicester

Our Half Time Celebrations and Excellence Awards

Summer 2025 marked the halfway point in our BRC journey, an unrivalled opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the impact we’ve achieved so far.  

How better to celebrate than to recognise the researchers, clinical staff and support colleagues who have made exceptional achievements over the past two and a half years; contributing to our success across the NIHR’s four key pillars: impact, inclusion, innovation and investment.

The Excellence Awards

We were delighted to receive more than 80 nominations submitted across seven categories, including Excellence in Research Inclusion, Emerging Researcher of the Year and Award of Appreciation.

The quality of the nominations was outstanding, and a panel of judges made up of senior figures from partner organisations spent a long day labouring over the shortlisting process – a reflection of the incredible talent and dedication we have in Leicester.

Finalists in each category were invited to the Excellence Awards on 4th September 2025, held at the historic Grand Hotel in Leicester.

All were recognised for their achievements and celebrated by guests including the Chairman and Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, guests from Loughborough University and UHL, as well as the leads of our six themes.

The M3 study team, part of our Lifestyle theme, were recognised for their new and innovative approach to Early Onset Type 2 diabetes care.

The Healthy Eating and Active Lifestyles for Diabetes trial (HEAL-D) study team strive to increase research representation and reduce diabetes-related health disparities in African and Caribbean populations.  They work within our Lifestyle theme.

Though national and international research collaborations with key Pharma (including GSK, BerGenBio ASA, Owkin, RS Oncology, Iovance, Boehringer, BMS, Aldeyra Therapeutics) and major funders (NIHR, CRUK, Mesothelioma UK, BLF, Asthma UK), the mesothelioma research team led by Professor Dean Fennell (FRCP PhD FMedSci FRSB), has collectively pioneered molecularly stratified medicine for patients with mesothelioma.

Professor of Diabetes Medicine, Melanie Davies is a world leading researcher investigating screening, prevention, self-management and treatment of type 2 diabetes.

In 2025 she was awarded the highly prestigious Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Diabetes Research Award by the American Diabetes Association, only the second women ever to do so, the first outside the USA.

Professor Pareek has dedicated his life to research on addressing inequalities within infectious diseases, healthcare and healthcare workers.

He is one of the world’s foremost expertise in developing and delivering inclusive public health research programmes in infectious diseases, migrant health and ethnic minority health.

Dr Daniel Pan is an infectious diseases doctor, who works within our Respiratory and Infection theme.

Dan's perseverance, and dedication to impactful science have left a lasting mark on global public health; such as his pioneering work on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on ethnic minority communities and the transmission of respiratory viruses.

As Manager of the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, Aarti has made an outstanding and transformative contribution behind the scenes, significantly advancing the Centre’s research success.

Dr Harriet Walter is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology and Honorary Consultant Medical Oncologist within our Cancer theme.

At this midway point, our Director and Theme Leads took some time to reflect on each theme’s journey, highlight our shared successes, and look ahead to what’s coming next.

Half Time celebrations

Our Half Time celebrations, which took place throughout the summer recognised our teams’ impact, and shared their increasing knowledge. It was brilliant to see teams come together to share their work, connect with public contributors, and continue pushing their projects forward.

Our Half Time celebrations included:

We’ll be sharing more details about our finalists and winners on our Spotlight on Researchers pages soon.