Welcome

The Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (‘CTSU’) was established by co-directors Professors Sir Richard Peto and Rory Collins in the early 1980s. The aim of the Unit is to generate and disseminate reliable evidence from observational epidemiology and from randomised trials that leads to practicable methods of avoiding premature death and disability.

The Unit is located in the Richard Doll Building on the Old Road Campus, and currently employs around 250 people, including statisticians, epidemiologists, clinicians, programmers, trial managers and other administrative staff. It is part of the Nuffield Department of Population Health.

It is funded by the Medical Research Council, which supports an embedded MRC unit, as well as by grants from the British Heart Foundation and from Cancer Research UK. It also receives grants from other charities and governmental organisations, together with funding from pharmaceutical companies for trials that are designed and run by the Unit and sponsored by the University of Oxford. See here for the Unit’s policy on funding.