It's a pleasure to award @Neil_J_Smart a rare @NIHR_GSU Global Surgery Unit recognition medal. His influence is well well beyond the UK, and he has a career with a huge global impact. Forgive me for doing it digitally tonight (I have one of these rare beasts at home and the committee has agreed), and we'll name an annual award after you. A throwback below to the Covid-times webinars we did together, and the journey through publishing the colorectal specific papers here and over many years.

Our clinical PhD programme, focussed on surgeons-in-training, is central to our research strategy and the future of surgery in the UK, EU, and rest of the world. We take quality over quantity, give a hands on approach, and build future research leaders. We're advertising for 2 new posts to start October 2025, to start tackling: -the intersection of technology and greener healthcare -addressing data driven knowledge gaps to impact on how governments view surgery -generating data and evidence syntheses to impact on pandemic preparedness in surgery -strengthening supply chains around the world, for both environment sustainability and the delivery of minimally invasive surgery in the Global South -reducing deaths after major surgery -trends analysis in surgery edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/…