What we do

We help researchers

We help teams of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who want to carry out research. Because we specialise in medicines for children, all the teams must be led by doctors. When we say ‘children’ we mean babies, children and young people aged 0 to 19 years. We cover a wide variety of research projects, but not everything affecting children. Some things affecting children, such as leukaemia, are covered by other research networks.

Doctors can give medicines in different formulations. Examples of different formulations are liquids and tablets. Liquids are easier to swallow if they taste nice, but with whole tablets it is easier to give exactly the right amounts. We support doctors who want to try out different formulations, to find the best ways of giving different medicines to children.

Strictly speaking, not all the research that we support involves medicines. For example, we might support doctors who want to find out how different therapies affect the lives of children and their families. If children have time off school for physiotherapy in a hospital, their parents might need time off work. The research might find ways of reducing the number of hospital appointments.

We help children and their families

• We explain to children, in language they can understand, what clinical research is all about.
• We ensure that the research is in the best interests of the children.
• We encourage children, their parents and other carers to get involved.
• We make sure children and their carers can find out the results of the research.

More about what we do, and what you can do

Please click here to find more about how we work, or click here to find out how you can get involved.