I feel very fortunate to have received this award. It will allow me to build on my current research in critical care, create new collaborations, and focus on questions that could improve care for patients who need breathing support.
Dr Daniel Hadfield
11 August 2026
King's clinical academics receive NIHR awards to support leadership in critical care
Two clinical academics from the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s College London have been awarded prestigious National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Awards, recognising their leadership in critical care research.
The NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award supports senior health and care professionals to develop as research leaders. Rather than funding a specific research project, the award provides protected research time, advanced training, mentorship and career development, enabling recipients to strengthen collaborations and prepare for future research funding.
Dr Daniel Hadfield and Dr Jasmin Islam, both members of the Centre for Critical Illness Research at King’s, have each received an award, beginning in September 2026, to support the next stage of their clinical academic careers and strengthen critical care research across King's Health Partners.
Dr Hadfield’s award will support the next stage of his development as a clinical academic nurse researcher over the next three years. His research focuses on mechanical ventilation in intensive care – including understanding patients' breathing drive and improving the process of weaning people from breathing support, with the aim of improving outcomes for critically ill patients.
Through the award, Dr Hadfield will undertake advanced research training and receive mentorship while developing new collaborations with researchers across King's Health Partners, the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre and the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group.
Dr Islam, Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, is the clinical lead for critical care infection at King’s College Hospital and the UK Health Security Agency. Her research focuses on improving antibiotic use in intensive care to help tackle antimicrobial resistance, reduce healthcare-associated infections and strengthen preparedness for future pandemics.
With the support of the award over the next five years, Dr Islam will establish a national surveillance programme for ventilator-associated pneumonia and investigate how metagenomics (a method for detecting genetic material from a range of microbes from a single clinical sample) could improve the diagnosis of infection in critically ill patients. She’ll also lay the groundwork for a future clinical trial to identify the most effective treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections in critically ill patients.
The award will support new collaborations with researchers across King's Health Partners, the UK Health Security Agency, the Wellcome Sanger Respiratory Viral Institute, the NHS Respiratory Metagenomic Network and the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care.
I am delighted to have received an NIHR Senior Clinical Research Practitioner Award. This is an amazing opportunity to continue my clinical work alongside protected academic time that will allow me to focus on reducing antimicrobial infections in critical care through exciting new collaborations and mentorships.
Dr Jasmin Islam
By providing protected time for research and leadership development, the NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Awards will enable both researchers to expand their programmes of work and help shape the future of critical care research and patient care.
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