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INPRES: Leading global collaborations in perinatal research


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Partnerships

International Perinatal Research (INPRES) Partnership

The INPRES Partnership is a collaboration between institutions around the world, leading and undertaking research in the field of perinatology.

The Partnership, founded in 2021 by two world-leading paediatric clinical trials unit: Melbourne Children's Trial Centre (MCTC) and the University of Oxford's National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) Clinical Trials Unit, aims to support clinicians and researchers in developing and facilitating clinical trials and observational research projects in the perinatal, neonatal, and paediatric population.

The goal of INPRES is to enable the world's experts in the perinatal, neonatal, and paediatric clinical research field to work together to improve diagnosis, implement personalised treatment decisions, and develop new treatment strategies that will benefit newborn infants and their families around the world.

The cross-border sharing of expertise, knowledge and leveraging of scientific and clinical strengths between leading perinatal clinician scientists and clinical trial teams, will accelerate and advance the development and execution of collaborative, international, investigator-led research.

Through the Partnership, collaborations are facilitated to promote and foster clinical research, combining research efforts already underway in addition to developing new research proposals. This involves cooperation at multiple levels including the individual project level, as well as partnering to develop the infrastructure required to support programs of research.

All members will work together to lay the groundwork for future networking prospects, with the intent of expanding to include additional perinatal, neonatal, and paediatric research groups globally, in order to further accomplish its mission.

Current Partners

Current Research Activities

  • The POLAR Clinical Trial

    POLAR trial - Positive end-expiratory pressure levels during resuscitation of preterm infants at birth

    The Partnership's flagship project, the POLAR trial, aims to establish how to best, and safely, support the fragile lungs of premature babies at birth.

    This trial will compare two commonly used respiratory strategies that both use gentle pressure to open the lungs. The trial will assess whether a brief period of higher oxygen pressure at birth, called PEEP (positive end expiratory pressure), which is adjusted to the oxygen and breathing needs of the baby, helps premature babies immediately after birth, and improves their survival without chronic lung disease, compared with the current typical newborn resuscitation practice of a using a lower, unchanging level of PEEP (commonly referred to as static PEEP).

    Through this we hope to give guidance to clinicians that can be easily, rapidly, and cheaply be translated into everyday practice.

  • The James Lind Alliance (JLA) Priority Setting Partnership in the Most Premature Babies

    The James Lind Alliance: Priority Setting Partnerships

    The James Lind Alliance (JLA) is a non-profit making initiative, established in 2004. It brings patients, carers, and clinicians together in Priority Setting Partnership's (PSPs). These PSPs identify and prioritise evidence uncertainties, or unanswered questions, that patients, carers, and clinicians agree are the most important.

    The aim of this exercise is to help ensure that those who fund health research are aware of what really matters to the people who need to use the research in their everyday lives.

    The specific aim of our PSP exercise is to prioritise the most important questions for the most premature of infants born <25 weeks of gestation.

  • The neoGASTRIC Clinical Trial

    neoGASTRIC

    NeoGASTRIC aims to determine whether routinely measuring gastric residual volumes (checking what is in the stomach before feeding) helps premature babies safely get to full feeds more quickly, without increasing harm.

    NeoGASTRIC is coordinated by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Clinical Trials Unit (NPEU CTU) at the University of Oxford, England, UK, in partnership with Monash University, Australia. The study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in the UK and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia.

    This trial will be the largest individually randomised trial in neonates ever run in the world. To answer our research question, premature babies will either have no routine gastric residual volumes measured, or have gastric residual volumes measured regularly. The two approaches being compared are already used on premature babies across the UK and Australia. Approximately 7040 babies will be recruited onto the trial from multiple hospitals in the UK and four large hospitals in Australia.

    Through this, we hope that the results improve neonatal care internationally.

Updated: Wednesday, 22 June 2022 16:59 (v26)

Contact Us

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Name
NPEU Clinical Trials Unit
Address
National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU)
Nuffield Department of Population Health
University of Oxford
Old Road Campus

Oxford
OX3 7LF
Email
ctu@npeu.ox.ac.uk
Tel
01865 289700
  • Further information about INPRES

    For further information regarding the INPRES Partnership or requests to join the international partnership, please contact ctu@npeu.ox.ac.uk