Dragon's Den 2025 is now Closed

Thank you to everyone who submitted abstracts for this year’s Dragon’s Den. Once again, we were delighted to receive entries of an exceptionally high standard. All entrants will be notified of the results by the end of the week.

We look forward to welcoming you to Dragon’s Den at this years Vascular Societies ASM on Thursday 27th November at 4:00 pm in the Level 2 Hall.

Dragon's Den

Since 2016, VERN has hosted the annual Dragons’ Den competition at the Vascular Society Annual Scientific Meeting. The session gives trainees and early-career researchers the opportunity to pitch their project proposals to a panel of expert “dragons” and a live audience. The winning project receives both financial support and VERN mentorship, helping to kick-start high-quality collaborative vascular research across the UK.

So far, Dragons’ Den has awarded nearly £30,000 in prizes, generously supported by a range of stakeholders, and has launched multiple impactful trainee-led studies.

Dragon's Den Brighton 2024

At Vascular Society’s ASM 2024 in Brighton, VERN once again hosted the Dragon’s Den competition. The panel – Phil Stather, Ankur Thapar, Mark Popplewell, Tristan Lane, and Ian Hunter – brought a wealth of expertise from across the specialty.

The competition showcased the breadth and quality of ideas put forward by trainees, ranging from adherence to vascular guidelines to refining definitions in peripheral vascular disease. We also heard an excellent update from Joseph Cutteridge on his ongoing work following his winning project on surgical site infections.

The 2024 winning proposal was awarded to Hayley Daysley for her project on carbon emissions in lower limb bypass. With VERN’s support, this project will now benefit from mentorship, practical guidance, and access to our national collaborative research network to help take it forward.

Dragon's Den Dublin 2023

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

  • Joseph Cutteridge, A rethink of the Surgical Site Infection Severity Grading

Dragon's Den Brighton 2022

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.

Dragon's Den Manchester 2021

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.

 

VISTA has now been published in the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (EJVES). 📖

 

VISTA highlights important themes in UK vascular trauma care, including:

  • Gaps in current registry data
  • Delays in access to definitive intervention
  • The rising burden of penetrating trauma

Congratulations to Katherine Hurndall and thank you to all the contributors and collaborating sites who made this project possible.

Previous VERN Dragons' Den Sessions

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)