Professor Dame Caroline Watkins

At the University Caroline is Director of Research and Enterprise for Faculty of Health and Care and has established Research Support Team (RST) and Health and wellbeing Research Methodology and Implementation (HeRMI) Hub to improve capacity and capability for research, as well as providing a mechanism for developing researchers. Caroline is Implementation Lead/Deputy Director for NIHR ARC NWC, demonstrating her formation of robust partnerships for implementation research to reduce health inequalities. Caroline contributes to substantial programmatic research and is Director of the UK's Lancashire Clinical Trials Unit which is leading a number of large UK and global stroke studies and has recently obtained provisional UKCRC Registration status.

Caroline heads the largest nurse-led stroke research unit, with a multidisciplinary team of researchers, with close clinical and academic links, and an extensive portfolio of pure and applied research. Caroline is acknowledged for developing and promoting high quality robust research which informs UK policy, guidelines and care, and has subsequently been adopted across the world including: being a key player in initiating the FAST campaign, introducing prehospital care into national stroke guidelines, working alongside clinicians, patients, carers and the public in streamlining stroke pathways, and considering priorities for long-term care. Caroline has led the development of the Stroke-Specific Education Framework (SSEF), which, through supporting and guiding workforce development, facilitates the delivery of quality stroke care. Caroline has a longstanding partnership with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTHTR) and has named LTHTR as linked NHS organisation when she has gained her first NIHR Senior Investigator award. NIHR Senior Investigators, which come from all areas of clinical research, are judged by a panel of international research experts to be the most outstanding leaders of patient and people-based research in the UK. Caroline is honoured to be one of the few nurses to gain this award on two separate occasions (2009 and 2016) with continuing NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus status in 2020. In 2016 Caroline received a ‘Life After Stroke Special Recognition Award’ by UK's The Stroke Association for contributions to improving the lives of stroke survivors through better stroke care and research. She is currently Chair of UK Stroke Forum (UKSF). Caroline was recognised for services to Nursing and Older People’s Care in 2017 New Year Honours with the award of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).