Reimagining Healthcare:
The Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies
Heriot-Watt University’s Global Research Institute (GRI) in Health and Care Technologies celebrated its showcase event in June 2025, marking a new era of cutting-edge research in, amongst other things, the fight against cancer.
The launch event, held at the National Robotarium on our Edinburgh campus, was opened by Heriot-Watt alumnus, Professor Sir Chris Whitty KCB HonFREng FRS FMedSci, Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, and brought together healthcare leaders, academics, innovators, government representatives, third-sector professionals, the public, and patients to explore the ways in which this landmark initiative will accelerate medical breakthroughs, tackle global health challenges, and shape the future of patient care.
Professor Sir Chris Whitty at the opening of the Health and Care Technologies GRI in Edinburgh.
What is the GRI in Health and Care Technologies?
This pioneering new institute, which has over 300 academics, researchers, and professional staff in its community, aims to revolutionise health and care across the UK and worldwide through cutting-edge research, technological innovation, and global collaboration. Academic Co-Lead Professor Robert Thomson explains, “Our mission is to develop solutions for the most pressing healthcare challenges of our time through a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach bringing together engineers, healthcare professionals, patients, and researchers.”
ACADEMICS
RESEARCHERS
The event signalled an exciting new epoch for health and care technologies, with the institute already supporting innovation across five grand challenges:
1. Engineering the fight against cancer
2. Prolonging life independence in healthy ageing
3. Sensing for chronic disease management
4. Innovating for one global health
5. Digitising mental health
Exciting developments are already in progress. In the fight against cancer, for instance, Professor Jon Shephard and Dr Rainer Beck have been working on the implementation of ultrashort pulsed lasers for tissue surgery, allowing for high-precision tumour removal with no heat generation and thus no collateral damage to healthy tissue.
Similarly, a team of Heriot-Watt scientists have been working with super resolution ultrasound imaging (SRUI) to improve the detection and prognostication of prostate cancer, which has the potential to be cheaper and more effective than magnetic resonance image (MRI) scanning.
“Our mission is to develop solutions for the most pressing healthcare challenges of our time.”
Professor Robert Thomson
A hand exoskeleton designed to help treat patients with spasticity.
The Future
A key project of Heriot-Watt University’s Shaping Futures campaign, the GRI in Health and Care Technologies was made possible thanks to external investment, which increased by 30% between 2023 and 2024, and academic leads are hoping that this momentum can be sustained. “As our healthcare systems face mounting pressures from workforce shortages to technology gaps, there really has never been a more crucial time to invest in innovation and training,” Professor Thomson tells us.
“There really has never been a more crucial time to invest in innovation and training.”
Dr Robert Thomson
And indeed, the GRI’s researchers have grand plans. Additional funding would go towards (amongst other things) the establishment of an endowed Chair in Health and Care Technologies, endowed PhD studentships, and a suite of MSc scholarships. The GRI’s importance has been front and centre in Heriot-Watt’s engagement with our community, too; Professor Nick Leslie joined us on our journey across the pond in April 2025 to meet our alumni and friends in the USA and share news of the vital work he and his colleagues are doing, and the response he received was remarkable. Dr Helen Sayles CBE, an inspiring member of the American Friends of Heriot-Watt University (AFoHWU) and our Global Council, immediately rallied several of her peers and together they founded the American Friends Scholarship to support the next generation of talent in biomedical engineering.
A key project of Heriot-Watt University's Shaping Futures campaign, the GRI in Health and Care Technologies was made possible thanks to external investment, which increased by
between 2023 and 2024
“The American Friends of Heriot-Watt Biomedical Engineering Scholarship is designed to attract the most talented and ambitious international students to our MSc in Biomedical Engineering programme,” Dr Sayles tells us. “I hope this is the kind of thing that fellow alumni can rally around—real effort with real results!”
It's fair to say, then, that the future for the GRI in Health and Care Technologies is looking bright. "We are creating a truly interdisciplinary ecosystem where clinicians, engineers, designers and patients work side by side to co-design solutions,” Professor Maiwenn Kersaudy-Kerhoas, Co-Academic Lead of the GRI, explains. “From connected diagnostics to AI-powered monitoring and sustainable medical devices, the innovations emerging from this institute will help us meet health challenges head-on."
Photos by © Ben Glasgow
Interested in collaborating with the Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies? Please contact the Global Research Innovation and Discovery team at GRID@hw.ac.uk.
