Reflections on the Healthcare Technologies Programme of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 2017-2025

This paper describes the Healthcare Technologies Programme of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council between 2017 and 2025, from the unique perspective of Mr David Rew, NHS Consultant Surgeon, Clinical Digital Innovation Project Lead at University Hospital Southampton, and Honorary Consultant Surgeon to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Southampton. Between 2017 and 2019, Mr Rew was an invited member of the Strategic Advisory Team for Healthcare Technologies of the EPSRC, and he has continued to undertake a range of tasks for the Council. In 2023, he chaired the final selection panel of the first national EPSRC Digital Health Hubs competition, which awarded ~£25 Million, shared between five successful regional academic consortia. On the basis of lessons learned from the first competition, the EPSRC launched a second round of this competition in a modified format in July 2025. Mr Rew is pleased to offer his own reflections, observations and perspectives of the work and strategy of the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies team to help advance high quality applications in the current and future rounds of the Digital Health and related competitions