Main Menu

Foundations

To achieve our aims, we need to put down strong foundations in the way we organise and support our research.

Professor Bissan Al-Lazikani, Head of Data Science at the ICR, explains the need for strong foundations to support cancer research. 

Our research strategy is an ambitious attempt to turn scientific discovery into real benefits for cancer patients.

But to realise the vision we have for our science, we need strong foundations in place for delivering and supporting our research. Our four foundations underpin our strategy and support every aspect of our research across the ICR and The Royal Marsden.

scientist in lab inspecting cultures credit royal marsden embed

Photo: The Royal Marsden

Each of these foundations supports every aspect of our research across the ICR and The Royal Marsden.

Our four foundations

1. People and skills

Talented, brilliant, passionate people lie at the heart of our research strategy. Our plans are ambitious and wide-ranging, and we will recruit and train the brightest and best scientists and clinicians to deliver them.

people and skills 

 

2. Digital and infrastructure

We are now living in an era of Big Data, with the ability to collect and mine huge amounts of information from the laboratory and from patients, including genomic, imaging and clinical data. We will deliver a step change in our ability to store, share, analyse and integrate Big Data, so that it can give us exciting new insights about cancer.

We will enhance other aspects of our research infrastructure too, so we can support our world-class science with state-of-the-art facilities.

digital and infrastructure

 

3. Culture and team science

We want to nurture the best possible culture at the ICR and The Royal Marsden: open, equal and collaborative. If we are to defeat cancer, we must make use of all the talented people available to us, and harness their skills and expertise by encouraging them to work together in multidisciplinary teams.

culture and team science (photo: Andrew Brookes)

(Photo: Andrew Brookes)


4. Partnership

The ICR and The Royal Marsden have worked together in close partnership for more than a century, and our relationship is a crucial ingredient in our successes.

To deliver on our ambitious strategy, we will also build upon our many other existing partnerships, such as our relationships with Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Now and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

We will create fresh partnerships too, in London, across the UK and globally, and with a wide range of public and private bodies. And we must continue to work in partnership with patients too.

partnership (photo: Andrew Brookes)

(photo: Andrew Brookes) 

Download the research strategy

Click below to download a copy of Making the discoveries: our strategy to defeat cancer

Scientific services

We run a wide range of scientific services designed to support researchers within the ICR, and in some cases more widely, with specialist equipment and expertise.