Study partners

The PROTECT study is led by the Health and Safety Executive’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Andrew Curran, and delivered by a collaboration of 19 government, regulatory and academic institutions across the UK. Current and past contributors include:

  • Animal and Plant Health Agency
  • Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
  • Health and Safety Executive
  • Imperial College London
  • Institute of Occupational Medicine
  • London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
  • Newcastle University
  • Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research
  • UK Health Security Agency
  • University College London
  • University of Aberdeen
  • University of Bristol
  • University of Cambridge
  • University of Hertfordshire
  • University of Leeds
  • University of Leicester
  • University of Loughborough
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Sheffield
  • University of Strathclyde
  • University of Warwick
  • University of the West of Scotland

PROTECT is one of six COVID-19 National Core Studies (NCS) funded by HM Treasury, having been allocated almost £16 million to date (£2 million for 2020-21, £14 million for 2021-22). The NCS programme is coordinated by the Government Office for Science. The other NCS are:

  • Clinical Trials Infrastructure: building on established National Institute for Health Research infrastructure to accelerate delivery of large-scale trials for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines (led by Patrick Chinnery, Clinical Director, Medical Research Council and Divya Chadha Manek, Head of Business Development, Vaccines Task Force).
  • Data and Connectivity: making data from all studies available and accessible to inform decision makers and catalyse COVID-19 research (led by Andrew Morris, Director, Health Data Research UK).
  • Epidemiology and Surveillance: collecting data to inform levels of restrictions and protection against imminent outbreaks (led by Ian Diamond, UK National Statistician, Office for National Statistics).
  • Immunity: understanding immunity against COVID-19 to inform back-to-work policies (led by Paul Moss, Professor of Haematology, University of Birmingham).
  • Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing: using data from longitudinal studies to address the impact of COVID-19 and associated control measures on health and wealth to inform mitigating strategies (led by Nishi Chaturvedi, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, University College London).