Research

Oxford University is world-famous for research excellence. Our core commitment is to maintain originality, significance and rigour in research within a framework of the highest standards of infrastructure, training, and integrity.

Search below for a range of research stories by department or topic. These stories include impact case studies, videos, news and the research in conversation series. For more information please see individual department websites.

Problematic old labels over image of museum interior

Rethinking the ‘Collection Development Policy’ for the Pitt Rivers Museum

Impact case study

Marenka-Thompson-Odlum and colleagues examined the Pitt Rivers’ Collection Development Policy in the light of initiatives to decolonise the museum, gaining insights and recommendations which will inform a policy update.
Ithaca inscription

Oxford historians apply state-of-the-art AI to transform the study of ancient texts

News

Ithaca is the first deep neural network that can aid historians in not only restoring the missing text of damaged inscriptions, but also identifying their original location, and establishing the date they were written.

dentist working on a young women

Youth Smile: enabling access to dental care for homeless young people

Impact case study

Maryam Ahmadyar worked with St Basils charity, Birmingham, to explore the barriers faced by young homeless people in accessing dental care, and develop recommendations to improve services.
Electric car charging

Big data and batteries help the move towards clean energy

Impact case study

Professor David Howey and colleagues in the Department of Engineering Science are using big data to improve battery testing – a vital step towards a clean energy future.
BA

New postdoctoral global scholarships at Oxford funded by British Academy

News

Projects funded by this round of the scheme will support new research into a wide range of topics from the function of music in the acquisition of knowledge to the Communist Movement in Burma and the study of Syro-Armenian polemics in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Point-of-care testing in serious mental illness

Point-of-care testing in serious mental illness

Impact case study

A new approach to point-of-care testing is offering patients with serious mental health conditions vital health checks at routine appointments – boosting their health chances and saving time and money for the NHS
Vaccine manufacture

Oxford team publish blueprint for making millions of doses of a new vaccine within 100 days

News

The researchers believe their work could enable Oxford’s ChAdOx vaccines to hit the “moonshot” objective set earlier this year by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which aims to help compress vaccine development timelines to 100 days from pathogen identification to mass

Photo | Technician placing blood tubes in the laboratory centrifuge

Vaccines shown to induce lower levels of neutralising antibodies against Omicron coronavirus variant

News

Researchers from the University of Oxford have analysed the impact of the Omicron COVID-19 variant of concern on one of the immune responses generated by vaccination.

Photo | Prof. Dame Sarah Gilbert on stage at the 44th Dimbleby Lecture

Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert delivers 44th Dimbleby Lecture

Featuring notable speakers from across the fields of  business, science or politics  almost every year since 1972, Prof.

Photo | Profs Gilbert, Lambe and Pollard collecting the Global Impact and Innovation Award

Oxford researchers honoured by British Society for Immunology

Professors Dame Sarah Gilbert, Teresa Lambe, Sir Andrew Pollard and Fiona Powrie received the awards for contributions to the field of immunology, from developing the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 coronavirus vaccine to pioneering gut immunology research and have inspired scores of new immunologists in the fie

Carina Joe Oxford

Oxford vaccine reaches two billion dose milestone

University researchers reveal invention of simple manufacturing method which has enabled rapid scale up of vaccine manufacturing in 15 countries around the world, reaching people across seven continentsApproach provides a template for faster and more equitable supply of other vaccin
Photo | Aerial. People crowd on pedestrian crosswalk. Top view background.

Vaccinated groups at highest risk of Covid-19 hospitalisation and death identified using new QCovid tool

New algorithm predicts those most at risk of serious Covid-19 outcomes from 14 or more days after second vaccination dose, when substantial immunity is expected to have developedAuthors hope this new risk tool will allow those who perceive risk to be high to make more informed decis
Oxford website - small tile HM

Dr Helen Moore wins the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize

The accolade is one of a selection of prizes and medals awarded today by the British Academy, the national body for the humanities and social sciences, for notable contributions to fields including Linguistics, Cultural History and Biblical Studies and is shared with Gillian Russell, Professor of

3D Rendering | SARS-CoV-2 virus cell.

Covid-19, not vaccination, presents biggest blood clot risks

Study compares risks of thrombocytopenia and thromboembolic events following ChAdOx1 nCov-19 (Oxford-AstraZeneca), BNT162b2 mRNA (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccination, and SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) infectionStudy shows increased risk of thrombocytopenia and venous thromboembolism wi
Photo | Glass vials for liquid samples. Laboratory equipment for dispensing fluid samples. Shallow depth of field.

Oxford vaccine reaches one billion doses released

AstraZeneca, with their extensive world-wide development and manufacturing capabilities, have been able to have the vaccine approved and licenced for use in over 170 countries, with over 20 manufacturing sites across the world, including the Serum Institute of India, working together to release t

Photo | Example of a Close-up Of A Doctor Injecting Syringe To Male Patient's Arm In Clinic

Phase I trial begins of new vaccine against the Plague

The trial, funded by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/, uses a vaccine based on the ChAdOx1 adenovirus viral vector platform al

Daily testing for students exposed to COVID-19 may be equally as effective as isolation of contacts for controlling school transmission

Daily contact COVID-19 testing for students effective at controlling transmission in schools

The independent study, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care and supported by the Department for Education and Office for National Statistics, ran between April and June 2021.

Photo | Elderly woman with hearing aid on grey background. Close up.

Difficulty hearing speech could be a risk factor for dementia

Hearing impairment affects around 1.5 billion individuals worldwide (World Health Organization), and there is growing evidence that this could increase the risk of dementia.

Photo | Heart shape raw meat with herbs on dark chalkboard background

Red and processed meat linked to increased risk of heart disease, Oxford study shows

Globally coronary heart diseases (caused by narrowed arteries that supply the heart with blood) claim nearly nine million lives each year1, the largest of any disease, and present a huge burden to health systems.

3D illustration of white blood cell leukocyte

T-cell ‘training grounds’ behind robust immune system response seen in adenovirus vaccines

Writing in the journal Nature Immunology, they detail an investigation into one of the key features of adenovirus vaccines – their ability to generate strong and sustained populations of the ‘killer’ T-cell element of the i

Pages