Message from our Co-Director
Thank you for taking some time to thumb through our 2021-22 Centre of Evidence-Based Dermatology (CEBD) impact report. We have tried to keep it brief with lots of images as it is meant to highlight just some of our work to give you a flavour of what we do and why it is relevant to you.
I will do my best not to highlight the highlights for you, but a few things strike me on reading this report. The first is how incredibly productive the whole team has been despite the pandemic. I can’t get over the fact that we have published over 150 peer-reviewed articles in the last 2 years – I know that numbers of papers are not everything, but it does say something about hard work, influence, commitment and collaboration.
Second, I have to mention the 20th anniversary of your UK Dermatology Clinical Trials Network (UK DCTN). When I started the Network, I was always fearful that it would all fizzle out after a few years, but thanks to a committed team and being in the right place at the right time, the UK DCTN has flourished. Our record in winning independent research funding and producing new impactful results in top journals has never been better. We are especially grateful to the British Association of Dermatologists for their support. It has also been such a joy to see our UK DCTN fellows progressing to become principal investigators in their own right.
Third, it is also heartening to see my colleagues taking the CEBD in new directions such as database research, qualitative research, citizen science and women’s health. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful team who all share our CEBD vision of independent research that matters to people with skin problems. Do take a peek at our core values section. These have emerged from our group as a whole and they help to explain what drives us in our day to day work. Every new colleague who joins us seems to “get it” – a sense of wishing to attain the truth about causes, prevention and treatment of skin diseases, a commitment for genuine patient and public involvement, adherence to high quality standards in research design and reporting and a desire to share study results widely so that they can be used for patient benefit.
Professor Hywel C. Williams OBE DSc FMedSci
Co-Director of the Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology