Leicester Lifestyle and Health Research Group

Our aim is to better understand how we can prevent and manage chronic disease through the application of human movement across the physical activity intensity spectrum

About us

The Leicester Lifestyle & Health Research Group (LLHRG) are hosted at the Leicester Diabetes Centre, based at the Leicester General Hospital. Our research takes place at the intersection of academia and the NHS. LLHRG’s research harnesses the power of lifestyle behaviours to empower multi-ethnic populations with or at risk of long-term conditions (LTCs) or multiple long-term conditions (MLTCs) to live longer and better lives. LLHRG are now one of the most prestigious Lifestyle as Medicine research groups in the UK, making a major contribution to the University of Leicester’s success at being ranked second overall (out 61 institutions nationally) in the Sport and Exercise Sciences unit of assessment (UoA24) and first for output quality, within Research Excellent Framework (REF) 2021 (Research Excellence Framework 2021 results | University of Leicester).

The Leicester Lifestyle & Health Research Group has around thirty University of Leicester employed staff and PhD students. We are a mix of Professors, Associate Professors and Lecturers, Research Associates, Exercise Laboratory Technicians and PhD students.

The Leicester Lifestyle & Health Research Group collaborates with clinicians, allied healthcare professionals, nurses and healthcare assistants, and clinical research infrastructure which includes specialist project managers, clinical academics, statisticians, psychologists, administrators, and creative designers.

In 2024 LLHRG secured £14 million in funding from Research England that will provide a transformative uplift in capacity to deliver sustainable research excellence through an expanded staff with diversified expertise and new world-class research facilities. The NIHR Leicester BRC Lifestyle theme, the East Midlands (EM) NIHR Applied Research Centre (ARC; previously CLAHRC), the Centre for Ethnic Health and the Real World Evidence Unit (RWEU) are also hosted within the Leicester Diabetes Centre. Working with these research infrastructures allows our team to conduct cutting-edge research in populations with or at risk of multiple long-term conditions.

The thriving community of multidisciplinary researchers and research infrastructure within the Leicester Diabetes Centre has greatly added value to the Leicester Lifestyle & Health Research Group’s research portfolio, capacity and capability by enabling us to implement the research pathway described below into primary care and community settings.