The Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence in Restorative Immunology is a seven-year programme running from October 2026 to September 2033. It brings together researchers, clinicians and partners to understand how immune-mediated inflammatory diseases can be resolved. Our goal is to restore healthy immune function and tissue health.
Welcome to the MRC Centre of Research Excellence in Restorative Immunology.
Our Centre brings together cutting-edge technologies with researchers, clinicians and patient research partners, united by a shared ambition: to transform how immune-mediated inflammatory diseases are understood and treated.
Over the next fourteen years, we will work across the traditional boundaries of medicine, spanning diseases, tissues, disciplines and institutions, to discover how immune balance can be restored and tissue health rebuilt.
By connecting discovery science with experimental medicine, we aim to break the therapeutic ceiling, move beyond disease control towards sustained, disease-free remission, and ultimately improve outcomes for patients.
Achieving this requires us to think and work differently. We will embrace disruptive science, creating a highly collaborative and inclusive research ecosystem where ideas, technologies and expertise come together. At its heart will be a commitment to developing the next generation of scientists, clinicians and research leaders at every career stage.
One Centre. One team. One mission: to restore health.
Professor Adam Croft
Director
Our ambition is to change how immune-mediated inflammatory diseases are understood and treated by moving beyond the long-term suppression of inflammation towards restoring immune balance and tissue health.
We aim to build the scientific foundations for new approaches that can deliver sustained, drug-free remission.
Professor Adam Croft, Director of the Centre, explains the thinking behind restorative immunology and what the Centre aims to achieve.
The Centre brings together research across inflammatory arthritis, Sjögren’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmune liver disease, studying affected tissues alongside relevant immune compartments and biological samples.
By comparing diseases and tissues, we aim to identify mechanisms of restoration that are shared across conditions, as well as those that are disease or tissue specific.
Explore our research
Our scientific programme is organised across three connected Research Streams: Data Exploration, Mechanisms of Tissue Restoration and Experimental Medicine. Together, they form a translational cycle connecting patient samples and data with laboratory research and experimental medicine.
The Research Streams are supported by Centre-wide activities including training and development, research culture, patient and public involvement and engagement, data governance, clinical studies, and knowledge exchange and commercial engagement.
This structure brings together researchers, clinicians, research professionals, patients and public contributors, and external partners across disciplines and institutions to support the Centre’s scientific ambitions.
The Centre brings together researchers and clinical teams from the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, University of Glasgow, UCL, Newcastle University, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge and Kyoto University.
Together, our partners provide expertise in immunology, clinical research, data science, tissue biology and experimental medicine, alongside patient cohorts, technologies and research infrastructure.
We also work with industry, charities, healthcare organisations, patient groups and other external partners to bring additional expertise into the Centre and help translate research towards patient benefit.
The Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research is contributing £400,000 to the Centre’s flexible funding programme.
This additional investment will help the Centre support emerging research ideas and researchers through flexible funding opportunities, increasing the number of projects and individuals that can be supported alongside MRC investment.
The Centre has a governance structure that provides clear scientific and strategic leadership while supporting collaboration across our institutions, Research Streams and wider activities.
Find out more about our research, the people and organisations involved, and opportunities to work with and contribute to the Centre.
Explore our scientific programme and three connected Research Streams.
Meet the people and institutions working across the Centre.
Find opportunities for patients and the public, researchers, students and partner organisations to engage with the Centre.
