Professor Richard Hobbs

Director, Institute of Digital Health; Mercian Professor of Primary Care; Director, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (NIHR ARC) Oxford

About

Richard Hobbs is Mercian Professor of Primary Care in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He was Head of Department (2011-2024) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (2019-2025) at the University of Oxford.

He was National Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s School for Primary Care Research (2009-2021) and Director of the NHS Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) Review panel from 2005-09. He has served many national and international scientific and research funding boards in the UK, Ireland, Canada and WHO, including the BHF Council, British Primary Care Cardiovascular Society and the ESC Council for Cardiovascular Primary Care.

Professor Hobbs currently chairs the European Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, a WONCA Special Interest Group.

He is one of the world’s most referenced academic leaders in primary care and has developed at Oxford one of the largest and most highly ranked centres for academic primary care globally. Professor Hobbs has also made major contributions to growing primary care academic capacity, in terms of people development and research networks.

A highly cited primary care clinical scientist, Professor Hobbs has authored over 700 peer reviewed publications, has an h-index of 124, with over 150,000 citations (136 papers cited over 100 times, 20 papers cited over 1,000 times and 15 papers with over 2,000 citations).

He has an outstanding track record in cardiovascular research, delivering trials that changed international guidelines and practice, especially in the areas of stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (BAFTA, SAFE and SMART trials), heart failure burden and diagnosis (ECHOES and REFER trials), and hypertension self-management (TASMINH series).

Professor Hobbs is only the fifth ever recipient of the RCGP Discovery Prize in 2018 (an occasional award made since 1953). During the pandemic he co-led creating the national trial platforms that delivered the UK out-of-hospital trials of repurposed medicines (PRINCIPLE) and novel antivirals (PANORAMIC), which both rapidly informed global guidelines on treatments for COVID.