About HCT
The Research Centre for Healthcare & Community Transformation (HCT) is a multidisciplinary research centre at Coventry University focused on delivering high‑quality, impactful research that improves health outcomes and reduces inequalities across communities. The centre brings together academics, clinicians, technologists and community partners to address complex healthcare challenges at local, national and international levels.
Mission
Underpinned by the ethos of the NHS 10 year plan for England, HCT’s mission is to transform healthcare and community wellbeing by generating globally significant, interdisciplinary research that supports care closer to home, enhances longer and healthier lives, and improves the efficacy, equity, reach and scale of health and care provision around the world.
Aims
The centre aims to:
- Shift healthcare delivery from hospital‑centric models to prevention, self‑management and community‑based care
- Develop innovative healthcare technologies, digital interventions and evidence‑based practices that address unmet health needs
- Co‑create research with patients, practitioners, policymakers and industry to ensure real‑world relevance and impact
- Advance health equity by addressing social determinants of health and reducing health inequalities
- Train and support the next generation of researchers through a strong postgraduate and early‑career research culture
HCT has a strong critical mass of expertise, including professors across health, technology and social sciences, and supports over 100 PhD researchers. Its work contributes to the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) and informs policy, practice and innovation at scale.
The Research Centre for Healthcare & Community Transformation (HCT) structures its work around three cross‑cutting themes underpinned by the NHS priorities for system transformation: shifting care into the community, accelerating digital innovation, and moving from sickness to prevention.
1. From Hospital to Community: Care Closer to Home
This theme focuses on transforming care delivery by shifting services away from acute, hospital‑based settings into homes and communities. Research under this theme develops and evaluates models of care that enable earlier discharge, rehabilitation, self‑management and long‑term condition support in community settings. It includes community‑based clinical research, nursing, midwifery and allied health professions, supported self‑management, community rehabilitation, trauma‑informed care, and interventions designed to improve access, continuity and integration of care across health and social care systems.
2. From Analogue to Digital: Technology‑Enabled Health and Care
This theme addresses the NHS shift towards digitally enabled, data‑driven healthcare. It focuses on the research and development of innovative healthcare technologies, digital health interventions and AI‑enabled analytics to improve diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and self‑management. Areas include wearable and remote sensing technologies, digital and AI‑supported health interventions, healthcare data analytics, image‑based risk prediction, and the co‑development and evaluation of digital solutions that are safe, effective and scalable across populations and care pathways.
3. From Sickness to Prevention: Population Health, Equity and Wellbeing
This theme supports the transition from reactive healthcare to prevention and population health management. Research focuses on understanding and addressing the determinants of health, reducing inequalities, and promoting physical, mental and social wellbeing across the life course. It includes physical activity and sport in communities, mental health and trauma‑informed approaches, epidemiology and population health modelling, clinical cohorts, and evaluation of interventions that prevent illness, support healthy ageing, and improve outcomes for underserved and vulnerable groups.
The centre works closely with Coventry University’s Centre for Care Excellence for Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health.
As a centre we strive to display the following characteristics:
- Agile and disruptive
- Collaborative and co-creative
- Ethical and sustainable
- Excellent and impactful
- Challenge led and transdisciplinary.
