The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) is part of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. Our vision is to support and increase the level of high-quality health research conducted in Scotland. This is for the health and financial benefits of our population so that Scotland is recognised globally as a ‘come to place’ for health science.

CSO works to maximise the impact of its research funding. We do this through positioning our investments within the wider UK health research funding landscape, through strategic collaboration, and by working with the NHS to ensure efficient support for research.

CSO also invest in the future through our fellowship funding, and have added to Scotland’s rich resource of patient data through investments in genomics, precision medicine and health informatics. It is vital that Scottish patients have access to Clinical Trials and we have appointed 24 Clinical Leads across areas such as Cancer, Diabetes, Stroke, Dermatology and Rare Diseases to deliver trials to time and target. To enable Scottish people who are interested in participating become involved in clinical studies, CSO funds the Scottish Health Research Register (SHARE). This allows coded data from NHS computer records to be used to check whether those registered might be suitable for particular health research studies. The number of participants is now over 200,000, which is testament to the willingness of the Scottish population to support and be involved in clinical research