Specialty Lead wins national award

A Health and Care Research Wales Specialty Lead has won a national award.

Dr Manju Krishnan, Specialty Lead for stroke, has won the British and Irish Association of Stroke Physician’s 2025 national award for best local researcher. 

BIASP Local Clinical Research Investigator Award is for a non-academic clinician who had substantially contributed to local stroke research.

Dr Krishnan, who is a consultant stroke physician in Swansea Bay University Health Board, was appointed Specialty Lead for stroke earlier this year. 

She was previously appointed Deputy Specialty Lead for stroke in 2016 and during this tenure, helped improve research participation in all stroke units across Wales. 

As a keen researcher, Dr Krishnan has undertaken Principal investigator roles in multiple international stroke trials including the ELAN study and OPTIMAS trial at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, which helped inform when to administer vital blood-thinning medication to stroke patients with atrial fibrillation. Dr Krishnan was successful in receiving an innovation grant from the Welsh Government as part of the Innovation strategy for Wales: delivery plan and currently undertaking research to develop a new stroke scale for stroke survivors as her PhD thesis with Swansea University. 

On winning the BIASP Local Clinical Research Investigator Award in 2025, Dr Krishnan said:

It’s a privilege to be recognised in this way. Research is at the heart of improving stroke care, and I’m thankful to my colleagues and patients who make this work possible. This award strengthens my resolve to keep pushing for research that meaningfully benefits people across Wales and beyond.”