OXFORD University wants to spend £14m turning part of the former Radcliffe Infirmary into a new research and teaching centre.

The Grade II-listed outpatients building in Woodstock Road has been empty since the hospital left the site in 2007 to transfer to the West Wing at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington.

Now after several attempts to find a use for the three-storey building, the university hopes to have found one.

Plans have been submitted to Oxford City Council for the university’s Department for Primary Care Health Sciences to use the building.

Prof Richard Hobbs, head of the department, said if all goes to plan it could move into the building in 2015.

He said: “We have funding to start the work but we will be seeking to get donations.

“The department has grown very significantly over the past two or three years. We have been successful in terms of the ranking of the quality of our research and teaching.

“It is largely the inevitable consequence of being a successful department that we need more staff.”

Niall McLaughlin Architects has drawn up proposals to redevelop the building, which involves demolishing part of it to disconnect it from the former Radcliffe Infirmary, now used as part of Oxford University’s humanities department.

It would also involve building a glass “infill” on the north face of the building over an atrium space.

Jericho city councillor Susanna Pressel said: “I’m very pleased that the outpatients building will return to a medical use – and such an important one as well.

“Primary care, with its emphasis on the prevention of ill health, is the key to improving the health of the nation.”

Built in 1911, the outpatients building included an X-ray department, mortuary, chapel, pathological department, laboratories and teaching rooms.

It ceased to be a hospital when the entire site was bought by Oxford University and the hospital moved to the John Radcliffe in 2007.

Last year the university reopened the former Radcliffe Infirmary building – originally opened in 1770 – after refurbishing it as part of the £220m redevelopment of the former hospital site.

The university had planned to use the outpatients building for educational use. Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art was offered the chance to use it but did not take it up.

The plans will be decided by the city council at a later date.