Botnar Research Centre
The Botnar Research Centre plays host to the University of Oxford's Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences, which enables and encourages research and education into the causes of musculoskeletal disease and their treatment.
The Botnar Research Centre provides world-class facilities for scientists in the field of musculoskeletal research. The Centre takes a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing orthopaedic, rehabilitation and rheumatology clinical scientists, bone oncologists, laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, engineers and statisticians. The Botnar also host the Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit (OCTRU) and the Centre of Statistics in Medicine (CSM), providing excellent statistical support to all aspects of clinical research.
The Botnar opened in 2002, with a large annex completed in 2013. To accommodate its rapid growth, the Centre will open another wing in early 2021. The Botnar is now home to around 300 staff and postgraduate students enjoying the international and friendly atmosphere of this workplace and benefits from the vast knowledge of leading experts in the field of musculoskeletal research.
The Institute's research is funded by a grants portfolio worth over £50m. Major supporters include the NIHR, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, Arthritis Research UK, Cancer Research UK and the European Commission.
Sharing the site of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, the largest specialist academic musculoskeletal hospital in the UK, puts the Botnar in a unique position to foster the collaboration between basic scientists and clinicians, which is essential to success in medical research.
The CSM provides in-house support in applied statistical research, as well as statistics support and collaboration on specific healthcare projects, development of reporting guidelines and monitoring of their uptake and education and training for internal and external researchers. OCTRU complements this by supporting the design, conduct and reporting in both early and later phase clinical trials.
The Botnar is also home to staff from the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and the Department of Engineering Science, amongst others, representing the breadth of scientific collaboration.
The current Director of the Institute is Professor Andrew Carr, Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Head of NDORMS.