UK Vascular and Endovascular Research Network

Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den 2022 Brighton VSASM meeting

For another year this event was a success with five high-quality presentations of proposed vascular research projects to be supported by VERN.

The winner of the £3000 prize was Mr Ross Lathan for his project “Prevention of Surgical Site Infection: A Global Pan-Surgical Survey of Practice”.

We would like to thank the dragons: Rachel Bell, Matt Bown, Dan Carradice, Ian Chetter, Gail Curran, and Joe Shalhoub for their thought-provoking questions, as well as the audience and competitors for their participation.

Dragons’ Den 2021 Manchester VSASM meeting

This event was a great success with four high-quality presentations providing exciting competition for the £3000 prize available. Ultimately, the prize winner was

  • Miss Katherine-Helen Hurndall (VISTA: Vascular Interventions and Surgery in Trauma Audit)

The £3000 prize was supported by Circulation Foundation.

We would like to extend our thanks to our panel of feisty dragons (Ian Chetter, Leanne Atkin, Julie Brittenden, Athanasios Saratzis, Louise Hitchman (VERN Rep). We also want to thank all audience and competitors for their participation.

Previous VERN Dragons’ Den sessions

VERN has hosted an annual Dragons’ Den session at the Vascular Society Annual Scientific Meeting since 2016. The sessions involve presentations of research proposals to a live audience and a panel of expert ‘dragons’. Live voting decides the winning research proposal, which receives VERN support alongside a prize funded by various stakeholders.

A total of £23,000 has been awarded so far through this process to kick start vascular research across the UK.

The winners of the 2019 Dragon’s Den (Manchester VSGBI meeting) were:

  • NIHR MedTech Prize £3000: Miss Rachel Falconer (Developing 3-D printed hydrogel models for a national programme of home-based vascular simulation training)
  • Bayer Prize £3000: Miss Louise Hitchman (Frailty Assessment in UK Vascular Centres (FAVE); a survey to investigate data collection methods and impact on clinical practice)

The winners of the most recent 2018 Dragons’ Den (Glasgow VSGBI meeting) were:

  • Mr George Dovell (Bristol) who will develop a core outcome set for diabetic foot disease.
  • Mr Owain Fisher (Coventry & Warwickshire) who will investigate the role of purine nucleosides in lower limb ischaemia.

Each prize was £3,000 (a general vascular research prize supported by AMGEN Inc. & a medical technology prize supported by the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative)