East Midlands Emerging Rehabilitation Technology Growth Enterprise (EMERGE) is a Place Based Impact Acceleration Account (PBIAA) funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) UK. This publicly funded PBIAA is specifically charged with taking proven Engineering and Physical Sciences research forwards to being used in health and care to directly improve rehabilitation outcomes. The ambition is to translate proven research where there is a demonstrable need and deployment market via the NHS in to use across the NHS, communities and homes in the UK. Providing in-use evidence of benefit and cost effectiveness, EMERGE aims to support national and international roll out.
Our long-term ambition is to capitalize on expertise and know-how, facilities and infrastructure in the U.K. and establish the U.K. as a leader for RehabTech development. Working from the East Midlands outwards we aim to turn the concept of an ‘East Midlands RehabTech Valley’ into a widely accepted reality. During this first four-year phase of funding we will leverage EMERGE resources to connect stakeholders and prime the community to develop a unified message, to advocate for the region, and to gather evidence that irrefutably demonstrates what the U.K. is already achieving and can achieve in the future in terms of RehabTech development and innovation.
Rehabilitation is essential to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, aligning with the United Nations Sustainability Development Goal 3 (UN SDG3). Rehabilitation Technologies (RehabTech) give people the tools to recover and accelerate their recovery, reduce disability, and regain independence following serious injury, illness, or declining function with age. RehabTech also prevents, reduces, or manages complications linked to many health conditions. Globally, 2.4bn people live with health conditions and this number will continue to increase as people live longer. As chronic health conditions increase, RehabTech demand is soaring. The East Midlands (EM) has established a pan-sector infrastructure that is at the forefront of rehabilitation and associated technologies, recognised by the UK Government’s £105M investment in the National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) on the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate near Loughborough. Economic decline in the U.K. is causing widening health inequalities with 1/6 people living in income deprived areas, and the number of people living with preventable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and COPD increasing year-on-year. Deprived communities are 60% more likely to suffer long-term health conditions than the most affluent yet face significant barriers to accessing rehabilitation services that would quicken recovery and a return to work.
EMERGE serves the strengths of the mature Engineering and Physical Sciences pipeline to advance a broad range of technologies including sensors, imaging, medical device materials and device design, smart medical wearables, bioengineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, data and synthetic data, data for therapeutic use and in silico, and digital twin modelling.
Over the course of the programme, EMERGE will utilise a range of funding mechanisms and collaborative opportunities to accelerate progression of these technologies through technology readiness levels (TRLs).
Exemplar areas include:
- Sensors and Imaging. EMERGEisaccelerating commercial adoption of engineering research in sensors for non-invasive health monitoring. This includes biosensors to accurately monitor the condition of chronic wounds and ease the £5bn cost burden per annum associated with wound care management. EMERGE is also positioned to exploit imaging expertise at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre in Nottingham, UK, to underpin evidenced-based clinical decision-making for rehabilitation interventions.
EMERGE funding is supporting projects that will apply breathing pattern analysis to enable early identification and monitoring of Breathing Pattern Disorder, develop novel respiratory monitoring technology to support home-based respiratory monitoring for Long Covid, and enable thermal imaging for musculoskeletal assessment in Primary Care.
These projects will improve access to timely rehabilitation interventions and enabling clinicians to personalise rehabilitation pathways more effectively across clinical and community settings.
- Smart Medical Wearables. EMERGEisprogressing a range of smart medical wearable sensors, actuators, displays, and communications to support earlier intervention, personalized and improved access to effective care at home. For instance, EMERGE funding is accelerating development of a smart bra for continuous post‑treatment monitoring in breast‑cancer rehabilitation, and an e‑textile sock designed to enhance home‑based stroke rehabilitation through accessible gait and balance monitoring. Together these innovations demonstrate how e-textile and biosensing wearables can extend rehabilitation beyond traditional settings.
- Medical Device Materials and Device Design Manufacture.EMERGEis supporting the development of rapid and efficient design and manufacture of custom-fit medical devices. This includes accelerating industry uptake of novel paradigms for biomaterials for more effective implanted medical devices.
Funding from EMERGE is supporting acceleration of custom-designed, patient specific orthotic devices to manage Rheumatoid Arthritis Foot Deformities and is supporting the development of bespoke driving prosthetics to restore mobility and independence for upper and lower limb amputees.
- Digital Rehabilitation platforms. EMERGEwillsupport the development of digital platforms enabling remote rehabilitation, AI-supported assessment and integration of multimodal data. These tools can reduce access barriers and extend high‑quality rehabilitation into the home and community.
For example, EMERGE funding is accelerating a digital alternative to pulmonary rehabilitation which is now being tested across NHS trusts to broaden access and generate real-world evidence to support adoption and scalability. The programme is also supporting the development of an advanced AI-based decision-support system prototype that recommends tailored rehabilitation plans for stroke and brain injury patients.
In addition to funding accelerator projects, EMERGE is also positioned to support researchers on the pathway to forming spinout companies, in turn boosting the growth of health technologies spinouts in the region. This follows in the footsteps of other successful regional spinouts, such as SurePulse Medical who are developing next-generation vital signs monitoring for newborns.
Article supplied by Emerge. Contact details: EMERGErehabtech@ntu.ac.uk or visit: https://emergerehabtech.org/
We would like to thank and acknowledge the funding from the UKRI, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) UK in the form of a four year PBIAA grant [EP/Z536076/1].
EMERGE Rehab Tech, Prof John Hunt, Academic and Research Lead, Medical technologies Innovation Facility, Nottingham Trent University will be part of the Day 1 Insights Stage at Med-Tech Expo taking place on 3rd June 2026. To attend and come and speak to us, please visit: Med-Tech Innovation Expo – Medilink Midlands.
