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Season's greetings from CSO

Season's greetings from CSO

19th December 2017

Taking up post as Chief Scientist Health on 1 November 2017, Professor David Crossman reflects on his first month in-post, his hopes for 2018 and festive wishes for all staff across NHS Research Scotland.

“As we approach the end of the year, naturally it is a period of reflection – a chance to review achievements and take stock of development areas for the year ahead.

I’ve had just a few short, but extremely insightful weeks in post. My first day was spent at the NHS Research Scotland Annual Conference – a fantastic showcase of Scotland’s dynamic research environment, and a celebration of the ground-breaking research we deliver in Scotland. The energy in the hall was very obvious and positive.   

The ability of our NHS to undertake high-quality research at pace is critical to broader life science objectives. Not only are we working to make people better and healthier but we are building economic growth and supporting Scotland’s vision to be the location of choice for businesses, researchers, healthcare professionals and investors.

Our research infrastructure is strong and recognised globally achieving the top spot in the most influential scientific research institutions in pharmaceuticals (2006–2016)[i]. Investment in world-class facilities such as the Imaging Centre of Excellence (ICE), opened earlier this year, bolsters our capabilities with cutting-edge technology supporting our precision medicine ambitions. This infrastructure, renowned expertise across all therapy areas and the wider health research sector in Scotland, combined with world-class data and national approaches to set up and deliver research puts Scotland in an enviable position. We must reach out to partners, at home and internationally to build collaborations, promote our capabilities and underpin expertise in basic, translational, early and late stage clinical research. The challenges of seemingly intractable disease need us to be able to work at scale.

We have much to be proud of and I feel extremely privileged to hold the post of Chief Scientist Health and play a lead role in Scotland’s thriving life sciences sector.

We have challenges but Scotland’s life sciences community is being asked to push boundaries, to think bigger; take the next leap of faith and I am committed to working with you over 2018 to make the opportunities for research, development and innovation more widely available, and enhance Scotland’s position as a world-class research destination.

On behalf of CSO and NRS Strategy Board, I thank you for all your hard work and commitment across 2017 and wish you a very happy festive season, perhaps with some well-deserved rest!. “

Best wishes,

Professor David Crossman



[i] State of Innovation Report (2017) Clarivate Analytics Available: https://clarivate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/The_State_of_Innovation_Report_2017.pdf Pages 104 - 113

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