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Research in child health technology is crucial for advancing paediatric healthcare and improving the well-being of children worldwide. By developing innovative medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health solutions, researchers can address significant health challenges to ensure that treatments and prevention strategies are tailored to the unique needs of children, leading to better health outcomes. Integrating technology into child health research fosters early diagnosis and intervention, which are vital for preventing long-term complications and promoting healthy development. As technology continues to evolve, ongoing research is essential to harness its full potential and create a healthier future for children.

As partners of SCYPHeR, both ºù«Ӱҵ Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and ºù«Ӱҵ Hallam University host key infrastructure to accelerate productivity in the field of child health technology.

(NCCHT) in ºù«Ӱҵ is a 42,000 ft² building set to become a groundbreaking facility dedicated to advancing children's healthcare through innovation and technology. Located at the ºù«Ӱҵ Olympic Legacy Park, the NCCHT will bring together leading universities, industry experts, healthcare professionals, and young people to develop new technologies addressing major health challenges such as prevention, health inequalities, long-term conditions, obesity, mental health, disease prevention, and disabilities. The centre will feature state-of-the-art facilities, including a gait and motion laboratory and a test-bed for trialling new technologies, and will serve as a hub for world-class research and development. The NCCHT has aligned its strategic focus on developing technologies that will support prevention as well as treatments, support the movement of healthcare to community and home settings and create a world-class digital health environment to ensure the best health and healthcare for children and young people. By focusing on the needs of children and their families, the NCCHT aims to revolutionise paediatric healthcare and improve outcomes for future generations.

The , hosted by ºù«Ӱҵ Children NHS Foundation Trust, is a pioneering network dedicated to transforming child health through technology and innovation. Funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), it is the only HRC focused exclusively on children, young people, and their families. The NIHR HRC in Paediatrics and Child Health has been developed from a legacy of technology and innovation infrastructure hosted by ºù«Ӱҵ Children’s that has worked across sectors to leverage over £50 million to support the developments of novel and exciting technologies to improve children’s health and healthcare. The HRC collaborates with patients, businesses, universities, and NHS Trusts to develop and implement medical devices, diagnostics, and digital technologies. With a mission to improve health outcomes from birth to 25 years, the HRC addresses key areas such as preventing pre-term birth, managing long-term conditions, ensuring safe transition to adult healthcare, and integrating mental and physical health. By fostering meaningful partnerships and leveraging cutting-edge research, the NIHR HRC aims to support that evaluation, commercialisation and adoption of new technologies that will transform the health and healthcare of the children and young people we care for.

ºù«Ӱҵ Hallam University's is a world leading centre for physical activity research and innovation, located at the heart of the ºù«Ӱҵ Olympic Legacy Park.

The centre promotes interdisciplinary research for co-creating cutting-edge AI, robotics and digital innovations that have the potential to deliver care closer to the patient and community making it more accessible.

Research spotlight

Social Assistive Robotics (SAR) is an emerging interdisciplinary field that provides ‎innovative solutions for healthcare and the wellbeing of people across their lifespan. ‎SAR operates through social engagement and support rather than performing physical ‎tasks.‎

In the context of child-health technologies, SAR offers innovative methods and tools for ‎the care of children's health and wellbeing. For instance, it has been shown that SAR ‎can lead successful interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to ‎develop social skills. Therefore, there is a growing interest in integrating social robots ‎into clinical practice. Recent research has shown that robots can be integrated into and ‎lead daily therapy activities, such as imitation, for children with ASD, including those ‎with intellectual disabilities. Robots can also be used as tools to objectively identify ‎children's behaviour during therapy using only the sensors, such as cameras and ‎microphones, embedded into the robots.‎

Research efforts are now looking at using child-robot interaction to support data ‎collection and screening for autism diagnosis.‎

Theme Coordinators

Professor of Child Health and Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology at ºù«Ӱҵ Children's Hospital

Paul currently works at ºù«Ӱҵ Children’s NHS Foundation Trust as a Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology where he leads the hypothalamic pituitary tumour service and he is the Director of Innovation and Child Health Technology. He is Professor of Child Health Technology at the University of ºù«Ӱҵ, and Professor of Child Health at ºù«Ӱҵ Hallam University. Paul is Vice President for Science and Research at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Director of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health.

Contact: paul.dimitri@nhs.net

Professor of Machine Intelligence at ºù«Ӱҵ Hallam University

Alessandro is the leader of AI, Robotics and Digital for the Advanced Well-being Research Institute. He is the founder and leader of the Smart Interactive Technologies (SIT) Research Laboratory, which has cutting-edge facilities and equipment for advanced machine learning and human-robot interaction experiments. His research specialises in cognitive mechatronics and its application to health and wellbeing.

Contact: a.dinuovo@shu.ac.uk