Prof. Dame Caroline Leigh Watkins (an NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus) is one of only two UK nursing professors of stroke care and leads the University of Central Lancashire's (UCLan) internationally renowned Stroke Research Team. She is Director of Lancashire Clinical Trials Unit (LCTU); Director of UCLan's Institute for Applied Health and Wellbeing and Knowledge Exchange-LIFE; Implementation Lead/Deputy Director for NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (NIHR ARC NWC); and Honorary Stroke Nurse Consultant at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. At UCLan, she is the Director of the Applied Health Research Hub (AHRh) and has established the Research Facilitation and Delivery Unit (RFDU) and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Unit, to improve capacity and capability for research, as well as providing a mechanism for developing researchers. She has led the development of the Stroke-Specific Education Framework (SSEF), which, through supporting and guiding workforce development, facilitates the delivery of quality stroke care. In 2016, she received a ‘Life After Stroke Special Recognition Award’ from UK's The Stroke Association for contributions to improving the lives of stroke survivors through better stroke care and research. She was recognized for services to Nursing and Older People’s Care in the 2017 New Year Honours with the award of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).