Medical research in Oxford received a massive funding boost yesterday with an investment of £57m from the NHS over the next five years.

The injection of funds came after the city was recognised by the National Institute for Health Res- earch as one of the country's leading centres for biomedical research. The application was submitted jointly by Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals and the University of Oxford, which will receive £11.5m a year over the next five years.

Trevor Campbell Davis, chief executive of Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We are proud to have been chosen to play a leading role in the future of UK biomedical research.

"We know that top-quality research will lead to the best in NHS care for the people served by our hospitals."

Peter Jezzard, Herbert Dunhill Professor of Neuro-imaging, added: "This is a very significant funding boost which will allow clinical staff to become much more involved in research. It will buy clinical staff time to do research as well as their day jobs."

Prof Keith Channon, a consultant cardiologist who works in Oxford University's cardiovascular medicine department, said: "This funding boost shows that Oxford has been selected as a national leader in this field and it will make a big difference to patient care - we will be able to see how new treatments work at the patient's bedside, not in a laboratory miles away."

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced that Oxford was to be one of five new "comprehensive" biomedical research centres of excellence across England that, together with six "specialist" centres, will share £450m over the next five years.

All the centres will be within the NHS and run in conjunction with universities. The centres will support and develop projects in medical sciences that are focused on translating research from the laboratory to the bedside.

Dr John Hood, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, said: "Winning this funding will allow us to build on the fruitful partnership we have with Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals.

"That partnership helps us to take research on vital areas including vaccines, diabetes, stroke, cancer and heart disease to patients in Oxford, the UK and the world."

The status as a biomedical research centre will be enhanced by new hospital buildings, including the new West Wing opening at the John Radcliffe in January 2007, which will house departments currently in the Radcliffe Infirmary, and the £109m cancer centre at the Churchill Hospital opening in 2008.

The university is building a £56m centre for medical research opposite the Churchill Hospital, which will include an Institute for Cancer Medicine to interact with the Cancer Centre.

The additions of the new buildings will make the Oxford centre one of the world's largest experimental medicine research institutes.