Identify investigators and sites for your research

A free, UK-wide service which enables commercial sponsors to rapidly gather expressions of interest to deliver your study from investigators and sites throughout the UK.

How we help you to quickly identify sites

Our site identification service will help you find the right sites for your research throughout the UK.  

We use our national Clinical Research Network and work with partner organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to quickly gather expressions of interest from sites that are willing to help conduct your study. This includes NHS sites in secondary care, (such as hospitals and patient recruitment centres), primary care (such as general practice and dentists), and the wider social care environment. If you have pre-selected some of your sites you can still use this service to secure further sites.

You only need to provide basic details of your study once, then we will do the rest. Interested sites will respond within 15 working days, often sooner. We will collate the expressions of interest for you, or your chosen Contract Research Organisation (CRO).

Once you have decided which sites are best suited to deliver your study, you can then engage directly with interested investigators and clinical teams for more in-depth selection and feasibility discussions.

Key benefits of this service 

• Free: as with all our Study Support Services, this service is free. Learn more about what we mean by the term free
• Reliable: the information returned will be up-to-date
• Easy: minimises the resource required to identify multiple sites
• Fast: you will receive expressions of interest within 15 working days
• Efficient: leads into feasibility discussions with interested investigators and clinical teams
• Inclusive:  provides equal opportunities for all UK sites to express interest in your research

Why our site identification service is inclusive

By using this service, you're providing an equal opportunity for all sites to express their interest in bringing your research to their patients. This inclusive approach helps ensure that the people taking part in your clinical trials are representative of those most in need. It is the only UK-wide site identification service.

Start identifying your sites

This service is requested via our Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS). If you have worked with us before, get started by logging into your CPMS account.

If you’re not familiar with CPMS, you may find our  10 step user guide for our Study Support Service helpful.

If you are new to the NIHR, or need more advice, fill out our simple contact form and request a chat with our friendly team.

What happens if I decide not to use this service?

If you choose not to use this service and instead use pre-selected sites, you will still need to inform us in CPMS to generate site-level costs at the costing stage via National Costing Value Review process.

It is important to be confident about the capacity and capability of pre-selected sites. In the UK, new measures have been introduced which improve visibility of studies that are not progressing to planned timelines and potentially holding up the flow of research opportunities to patients. If delivery issues cannot be resolved, NIHR research delivery resources could be redirected to support other studies to ensure that we can continue to provide patients with opportunities to participate in research.