ROK-UK Smart Clinical Trials Application Development Award

Bilateral funding programme to support collaborative projects between researchers in the UK and the Republic of Korea to develop new tools, technologies and procedures for smart clinical trials.

Established in 2006 and primarily funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds health and care research in the UK.

For this opportunity, NIHR is partnering with the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI). Support is offers for projects bringing together researchers from the UK and Korea who are working together on developing and using new tools and technologies to deliver smart clinical trials. The aim is to help leverage innovative technologies and methodologies to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and inclusiveness in clinical research.

In the first stage of the collaboration, seven Collaboration Awards were granted in 2025. These are now followed by an open invitation for collaborative Application Development Awards (ADA). The ADA support the development of research collaborations and the testing of research and concepts required to establish a competitive future large scale ROK-UK smart clinical trial protocol. 

The awards are aimed at deepening collaboration between UK and ROK researchers. The focus is on:

• Design/development of a smart clinical trial research protocol.
• Building of a multidisciplinary team.
• Overcoming of operational, recruitment and/or regulatory barriers.
• Refinement of:
  • Interventions
  • Technologies
  • Methodologies
  • Data collection and analysis
• Piloting and/or feasibility work.

The objective is to put teams in a good position to conduct future large scale ROK-UK Smart Clinical Trials.

Joint teams are invited to investigate the following areas:

• Trial design
• Patient recruitment
• Patient communication and retention
• Data analysis and insights generation
• Regulatory issues

NIHR is seeking collaborations with expertise in the following areas:

• AI
• Wearables and the internet of things
• Decentralised and virtual trials
• Data integration and analytics
• Digital platforms and communication tools

Technologies which could be researched during the design and delivery of a clinical trial include (but are not limited to):

• Using analysis of electronic literature and Real World Data (from patient records or health apps) to set a hypothesis.
• Using virtual simulation to design trials.
• Using digital twins to establish patient groups.
• Using Electronic Health Record (EHR) analysis to identify trial participants.
• Automation of clinical trial eligibility assessment.
• Developing a decentralised clinical trial platform.
• Electronic consent and patent engagement analysis.
• AI-based automation of clinical data statistical analysis.
• Connecting and analysing Real World Data with clinical trial data.
• Using machine learning to detect adverse event patterns.
• Using wearables to track medication adherence.
• Establishing a real-time data analysis feedback loop for an adaptive trial.

All proposed activities under the scheme must align with the NIHR remit and work towards advancing interventions, technologies, or methodologies that have achieved at least Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4.