AIIMS Brings 20 Institutes Together to Form a Pan-India Research Consortium for Health Innovation

By pooling clinical expertise, infrastructure and patient data, the new consortium seeks to enable multi-institutional studies and large clinical trials.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, has brought together 20 AIIMS institutions from across the country to establish a pan-India collaborative research consortium, marking a shift towards coordinated biomedical research aligned with national health priorities.

The initiative is intended to move the AIIMS system away from isolated, institution-specific studies towards a coordinated national approach that supports health innovation and evidence-based healthcare decision-making.

The agreement was formalised during a meeting of AIIMS directors in New Delhi, where senior leaders and researchers discussed ways to align research agendas with pressing public health needs.

The consortium links AIIMS campuses in New Delhi, Bathinda, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Bibinagar, Bilaspur, Deoghar, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Jammu, Jodhpur, Kalyani, Madurai, Mangalagiri, Nagpur, Patna, Raebareli, Raipur, Rajkot and Rishikesh, forming one of India’s largest public healthcare and research networks.

Until now, research across AIIMS institutions has largely reflected local capacities and priorities. While this has produced significant scientific output, it has also limited the scale of studies that require large and diverse patient populations.

By pooling clinical expertise, infrastructure and patient data, the new consortium seeks to enable multi-institutional studies and large clinical trials that are increasingly necessary to address complex health challenges in a country as diverse as India.

Discussions during the meeting focused on identifying common national research priorities and expanding multicenter clinical trials. Emerging and policy-relevant areas such as artificial intelligence in healthcare, affordable cancer therapies, healthcare-associated infections and the growing burden of metabolic disorders were highlighted as key focus areas. To improve coordination and reduce administrative delays, each participating institute will designate nodal officers and single points of contact.

AIIMS Director Prof. M. Srinivas described the initiative as a collective commitment to nationally relevant research. “By bringing together the strengths of AIIMS institutions across India, we aim to generate robust scientific evidence, promote innovation and support informed decision-making in healthcare,” he said, adding that the consortium is expected to evolve as research needs change.

For researchers, the platform offers an opportunity to harmonise protocols, share expertise and improve the reproducibility of findings. Prof Nikhil Tandon, Dean (Research), AIIMS New Delhi, noted that leveraging diverse patient populations across institutions would help answer research questions that smaller, isolated studies cannot.

“Leveraging diverse patient populations across AIIMS institutions allows us to answer questions that smaller, isolated studies simply cannot,” he said. The launch also reflects a broader push to strengthen research within the public health system.

AIIMS New Delhi alone is currently running around 1,000 research projects, has mobilised close to INR 300 Cr in research funding and has produced nearly 3,000 publications.

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