51cg

Biography

Dr Muhammad Imran Omar is a medically qualified clinical academic with expertise in evidence synthesis, clinical practice guideline methodology, real-world evidence, big data and urology research. His work contributes to evidence-based healthcare practice, policy and research methodology internationally.

He obtained his M.B.,B.S. from Dow Medical College (1993–1998) and is certified by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG), USA, having completed USMLE Step 1, Step 2 and Clinical Skills Assessment. He holds an MSc in Health Services and Public Health Research from the 51cg (2009) and a Master’s in Medical Education from the University of Dundee (2012). He is a Fellow of Advance HE and is registered with the General Medical Council, UK.

Dr Omar served as Managing Editor of the Cochrane Incontinence Group for nearly five years and is a Contact Editor for Cochrane Urology. He is active in the GRADE Working Group and in the Cochrane Bias Methods, Trainers’, Statistical, and Consumer Networks.

Within the European Association of Urology (EAU), he is Vice-Chair of the Guidelines Office Methods Committee, an EAU Guidelines Office Methodology Supervisor, and a member of the EAU Non-Neurogenic Female LUTS Guideline Panel.

In 2026, he was appointed to the NIHR Evidence Synthesis Programme Researcher-Led Funding Committee for a three-year term, contributing to the national assessment of research funding applications. He also served as a committee member for the SIU-ICUD international consultation on male LUTS, contributing to the published work on predictive models, patient outcomes and artificial intelligence.

Dr Omar has authored more than 285 research publications, with more than 7,781 citations and an h-index of 43 as of September 2026. His work has been featured by Reuters, BBC Scotland, Daily Mail UK, The Telegraph, EveryDay Health and Yahoo News, and he has appeared on BBC Scotland’s The Nine, BBC Scotland News and BBC Radio.

Prizes and Awards

Dr. Muhammad Imran Omar’s research projects have received several prestigious awards and recognitions for their excellence and impact in evidence synthesis, real-world evidence, and urology research. His contributions have been consistently acknowledged by esteemed organizations worldwide. Some of the recent awards are mentioned below:

• Royal Garden Party, Palace of Holyroodhouse – invited by the Lord Chamberlain on behalf of His Majesty (30 June 2026), in recognition of contributions to evidence synthesis, clinical guideline development and international research leadership.
• Impact & Engagement Accelerator Award (£15,000) – School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition, 51cg (2026); PIONEER selected as one of five supported impact case studies.
• ProReg Founding Partner Certificate (2026) – recognising contribution to the establishment and implementation of the international ProReg prostate-cancer registry.
• Best in Category Prize: Urethra Male/Female – International Continence Society (October 2024).
• Best in Category Prize: Continence Care Products/Devices/Technologies (Clinical) – International Continence Society (October 2024).
• Best Presentation of Discussed Poster – RCOG World Congress (October 2024), for the RCT comparing clinical and cost effectiveness of catheter washout policies.
• Certificate of Most Cited Article – BJU International (July 2024), for the Cochrane network meta-analysis on minimally invasive treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia.
• Best in Category Prize: Prostate Clinical/Surgical – International Continence Society (September 2023).
• Best in Category Prize: Prevention and Public Health – International Continence Society (October 2021).
• Award for New Investigators, sponsored by Ferring International – International Continence Society (August 2013).

These awards reflect the high quality and impact of Dr. Omar’s research projects, which continue to contribute to advancing clinical practice guidelines and improving patient care globally. 

Research Overview

Dr Muhammad Imran Omar is an internationally recognised researcher specialising in evidence synthesis, clinical practice guideline methodology, real-world evidence, big data and urology research. His work has contributed to international clinical guidelines, research methodology, health policy and evidence-based clinical practice through collaborations with organisations including the European Association of Urology (EAU), Société Internationale d'Urologie (SIU), Cochrane and NIHR.

He has authored more than 285 research publications, with over 7,700 citations and an h-index of 43 as of September 2026. His research spans systematic reviews and meta-analyses, clinical practice guideline methodology, real-world data, artificial intelligence, core outcome sets and methodological approaches to integrating diverse forms of evidence into healthcare decision-making.

Dr Omar holds leadership roles in several major national and international research programmes. His current methodological work includes leading an international EAU project integrating artificial intelligence across the evidence-synthesis workflow, co-leading methodology development to incorporate real-world evidence and big data into clinical guidelines, and leading the methodology for an international core outcome set within the EAU Female LUTS Panel.

His broader research leadership includes OPTIMA, PIONEER/PIONEER+, UroEvidenceHub, and ProReg, alongside European Commission work on prostate cancer guidelines and quality standards. He leads the development of PIONEER as a potential REF2029 Impact Case and is the UK Lead for ProReg. His research increasingly focuses on translating evidence synthesis, real-world data and methodological innovation into clinical guidelines, healthcare decision-making and measurable patient and health-system impact.

Current Research

OPTIMA

Dr Omar is the 51cg Lead for OPTIMA, a €21.3 million international programme using real-world data, evidence synthesis and artificial intelligence to improve care for patients with prostate, breast and lung cancers.

He leads multidisciplinary research teams that deliver key OPTIMA activities, including identifying and prioritising critical research questions, developing representative clinical case presentations, appraising and prioritising clinical practice guidelines, and identifying evidence gaps across cancer pathways.

His team has completed AGREE II appraisal programmes across prostate, breast and lung cancer guidelines and is undertaking international prioritisation work to identify clinically important unanswered questions. He also leads Aberdeen's contribution to Scottish real-world cancer data within OPTIMA.

In 2026, Dr Omar successfully negotiated with the OPTIMA consortium on Aberdeen’s project budget for the extension period, supporting continued research delivery and NHS Grampian data access.

PIONEER / PIONEER+

Following the original €12 million PIONEER programme, Dr Omar continues to lead work through PIONEER+ and the EAU UroEvidenceHub.

He is Lead Methodologist for a 10-centre harmonised real-world evidence study examining triptorelin use, outcomes and safety in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. At PIONEER+ Study-a-Thon 4 in Brussels in June 2026, he contributed methodological leadership to the harmonisation of clinical definitions, endpoints and analysis.

He is also leading the development of PIONEER as a potential 51cg REF2029 Impact Case, building on its evidence synthesis, core outcome set, and real-world data programme.

ProReg

Dr Omar is the UK Lead for ProReg and a member of the Steering Committee. ProReg is an international prospective prostate cancer registry operating within the UroEvidenceHub programme.

He leads implementation in the UK. NHS Grampian ethics approval has been secured, and he is supporting implementation across additional UK centres. Aberdeen's participation has been recognised through a ProReg Founding Partner Certificate.

EAU AI and evidence-synthesis methodology

Dr Omar is the Project Lead for an 18-month international EAU project that is developing methods to integrate artificial intelligence into the evidence synthesis workflow.

The programme examines where AI can appropriately support activities such as searching, screening, data extraction, risk-of-bias assessment, synthesis and production of guideline-relevant evidence.

Real-world evidence and Big Data in clinical guidelines

Dr Omar co-leads an EAU programme that develops methodologies for incorporating real-world evidence and Big Data into clinical practice guidelines. This work addresses methodological issues, including data quality, representativeness, confounding and bias, the certainty of the evidence, and the translation of real-world evidence into guideline recommendations.

Core Outcome Set: Female LUTS

Dr Omar is Lead Methodologist for an international core-outcome-set project within the EAU Non-Neurogenic Female LUTS Guideline Panel.

The programme developed from an MSc student project supervised by Dr Omar that examined outcome heterogeneity. The work has subsequently been developed into an international COS programme and is progressing to a multi-stakeholder Delphi consensus.

European Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer

In 2026, Dr Omar was a member of the successful Joint Research Centre team selected to contribute to the development of European evidence-based prostate cancer guidelines and quality requirements under the European Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer.

Scottish prostate-cancer inequalities

Dr Omar co-leads a UCAN-funded study examining approximately 20 years of inequalities in prostate-cancer diagnosis, treatment and outcomes across Scotland. He leads the acquisition of the required national Public Health Scotland data.

GRADE rare diseases

Dr Omar is an invited international expert in the GRADE Rare Diseases Project Group. He co-authored the group's concept paper on applying GRADE in rare diseases and has been invited to contribute to subsequent methodological guidance.

Past Research

PIONEER (2018–2023)

Dr Omar played a major leadership role in the original €12 million PIONEER programme, a five-year pan-European public-private partnership involving 37 stakeholders across nine countries, designed to improve prostate-cancer care through big data and real-world evidence.

His work included:

• leading international prioritisation of unanswered prostate-cancer research questions, resulting in a multi-stakeholder consensus publication in Nature Reviews Urology;
• supervising a team of 14 researchers undertaking systematic reviews;
• leading the Grampian Electronic Health Record project, mapping routinely collected data from approximately 35,000 patients;
• contributing to the development and updating of prostate cancer core outcome sets and patient-reported outcome measures;
• supporting large-scale international Study-a-thons and real-world evidence analyses.

CATHETER II

Dr Omar was a Co-Investigator and lead for evidence synthesis and methodological design within the £2.19 million NIHR HTA-funded CATHETER II trial, which examined catheter washout policies in adults living with long-term urinary catheters.

His role included evidence synthesis and methodological input to the qualitative components. The programme generated multiple publications and international presentations and received awards at major scientific meetings.

ESTER

Dr Omar was Co-Investigator on the NIHR-funded ESTER programme evaluating surgical treatments for women with stress urinary incontinence, leading GRADE assessment and evidence synthesis within its network meta-analysis and economic evaluation.

Cochrane Incontinence

From 2011–2016, Dr Omar served as Managing Editor of the Cochrane Incontinence Group. He oversaw a substantial portfolio of systematic reviews and protocols, supported and trained review authors, and contributed to the NIHR-funded Cochrane infrastructure.

His own Cochrane work includes numerous systematic reviews across urinary incontinence, catheterisation, male LUTS and related urological conditions.

EAU/McMaster Haematuria Programme

As Lead Methodologist, Dr Omar provided senior methodological leadership for systematic reviews addressing haematuria and diagnostic accuracy, contributing as senior author to resulting publications.

INSIDE-PC

Dr Omar served as Lead Methodologist of the multi-institutional INSIDE-PC programme involving the 51cg, EAU and Pfizer. The project has been completed, and its primary paper has been published.

OTIS

Dr Omar provided methodological leadership for the NIHR-supported OTIS study, which examined the effects of transposed intestinal segments on bladder function.

Waiting Well for Arthroplasty

Dr Omar served on the Advisory Group for the RGU/Public Health Scotland Waiting Well programme, addressing extended waiting periods for hip and knee arthroplasty.

He contributed expertise in systematic reviews, Delphi consensus and guideline methodology. Using the SIGN Rapid Methodology for Guideline Development, the project developed six recommendations forming the foundation of the Waiting Well guidance. The project is now complete, with the draft Scotland-wide clinical practice guideline ready.

Knowledge Exchange

Dr Omar has a sustained record of translating research into clinical guidelines, professional practice, policy, education and public understanding.

Through his EAU roles, he has contributed to methodological standards supporting 21 international clinical practice guidelines and approximately 250 systematic reviews underpinning recommendations endorsed by more than 70 national urological societies. He has delivered more than 30 workshops and trained over 500 clinicians and researchers internationally in evidence synthesis, GRADE and guideline methodology.

He is leading the development of PIONEER as a potential 51cg REF2029 Impact Case, systematically gathering evidence of reach, significance and non-academic impact. PIONEER was selected as one of five highly rated SMMSN impact cases and received a £15,000 Impact & Engagement Accelerator Award. He presented the programme’s impact and stakeholder engagement work at EAU26 and the University’s SMMSN Impact Symposium.

His current knowledge-exchange activity also includes the promotion and implementation of ProReg across UK centres.

In 2026, he was featured in an official EAU/UroEvidenceHub interview discussing the contribution of NHS Grampian data to international real-world evidence and the improvement of prostate cancer care.

Dr Omar is regularly invited to share his expertise at national and international meetings. Recent invitations include WFIPP in Rome, MMISU in Cairo, the SIU-EAU Winter School in Fiesole, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Aberdeen Centre for Evaluation and the Horizon Europe iBeCHANGE sustainability roundtable.

In 2025, he was also interviewed by the European Cancer Patient Coalition on personalised medicine and by the BRECISE consortium on major global healthcare challenges.

His work has also attracted substantial national and international media attention. He has been interviewed repeatedly by Reuters, with his research subsequently featured by outlets including Daily Mail UK, The Telegraph, Yahoo News and BioNews. He has appeared as an invited expert on BBC Scotland’s The Nine, BBC Scotland News and BBC Radio Scotland, and has previously been interviewed by EAU Television on evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews and patient involvement in guideline development.

Collaborations

Dr Omar has developed sustained multidisciplinary collaborations across the 51cg, NHS Grampian and a wide range of national and international academic, clinical, professional and industry partners.

Within Aberdeen, his collaborations include the Academic Urology Unit, Aberdeen Centre for Women’s Health Research, Aberdeen Centre for Evaluation, CHART, Health Technology Assessment Group, DaSH, iCAIRD, Public Health, and multiple NHS Grampian clinical departments. He has worked across these groups since 2008, supporting interdisciplinary evidence synthesis, real-world data research, clinical trials and guideline-relevant research.

Internationally, his principal collaborations include:

• European Association of Urology (EAU), through the Guidelines Office Methods Committee, guideline panels, UroEvidenceHub and evidence-synthesis programmes.
• Cochrane, including Cochrane Urology and international methodological networks.
• Société Internationale d’Urologie (SIU), including the SIU-ICUD international consultation on male LUTS.
• European Commission Joint Research Centre, through the European Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer.
• OPTIMA consortium, involving academic, clinical and industry partners across Europe.
• PIONEER/PIONEER+ and UroEvidenceHub, bringing together clinicians, patients, researchers, data scientists and industry partners in prostate cancer real-world evidence.
• NHS Grampian and Public Health Scotland, including real-world cancer data, ProReg implementation and population-level prostate-cancer research.
• Robert Gordon University, including the Waiting Well guideline-development programme.
• McMaster University and international GRADE collaborators in evidence synthesis and guideline methodology.
• Newcastle University, through BEST, is a UK evidence synthesis network established to inform clinical guidelines and future trials.
• University of Liverpool, through methodological collaboration on a diagnostic test accuracy network meta-analysis.

These collaborations reflect Dr Omar’s longstanding role in bringing together clinicians, methodologists, statisticians, epidemiologists, data scientists, patients and other stakeholders to generate robust evidence and translate it into clinical practice and policy.

Funding and Grants

Dr Omar has contributed to the successful acquisition and delivery of more than £31 million in research funding, with more than £4.37 million awarded directly to the 51cg, including £968,736 as Principal Investigator

(Optimal Treatment for Patients with Solid Tumours in Europe Through Artificial Intelligence) is a €21.3 million Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2)-funded research programme involving 36 partners across 13 countries. The project aims to develop the first interoperable, GDPR-compliant real-world oncology data and evidence-generation platform to improve care for prostate, breast and lung cancers through artificial intelligence, real-world evidence and evidence-based clinical guidelines.

As the 51cg Lead for OPTIMA, Dr Omar provides strategic and methodological leadership across several major components of the programme, including:

• Task 3.1: Critical research questions: Leads work to identify and prioritise the most important unanswered research questions across prostate, breast and lung cancer pathways, helping to direct future evidence generation towards areas of greatest clinical need.
• Task 3.2: Representative clinical cases: Leads development of representative patient case presentations to support the design and evaluation of OPTIMA’s AI-enabled clinical decision-support tools.
• Task 3.3: Clinical practice guidelines: Leads appraisal and prioritisation of clinical practice guidelines and key recommendations for integration into OPTIMA’s AI models and decision-support platform.

Under Dr Omar’s leadership, the Aberdeen team has undertaken a systematic appraisal of international prostate, breast and lung cancer guidelines and international prioritisation work to identify clinically important evidence gaps.

He has also provided significant funding and leadership in resources for Aberdeen’s contribution. In 2024, he led a successful supplementary funding bid, securing an additional €160,000 to support project management and acquisition of oncology data. In 2026, he successfully negotiated a €326,319 allocation for the 51cg, including €120,000 for NHS Grampian data provision, strengthening Aberdeen’s role in the extended OPTIMA programme.

Scottish Prostate-Cancer Inequalities

In 2026, Dr Omar became co-lead of a £9,413 UCAN-funded study examining approximately 20 years of inequalities in prostate-cancer diagnosis, treatment and outcomes across Scotland. He leads acquisition of the national Public Health Scotland data required for the study.

 was a €12 million, Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)-funded, five-year project aimed at improving prostate cancer care through real-world data analytics. This multinational initiative involved 37 stakeholders from nine countries, working collaboratively to enhance health-system efficiency and patient outcomes across Europe. Dr Omar led several key areas of the PIONEER programme, including:

• Systematic Reviews: Led the EAU Associates team undertaking a substantial programme of systematic reviews to address priority evidence gaps in prostate cancer.
• Knowledge Gap Identification: Led a dedicated team of researchers to identify and prioritise critical unanswered questions in prostate cancer, helping to shape future research priorities and clinical practice. This work contributed to the international multi-stakeholder prioritisation programme published in Nature Reviews Urology.
• Grampian Electronic Health Record Project: Led the Grampian EHR project, including a multidisciplinary team mapping routinely collected data from approximately 35,000 patients, strengthening Aberdeen’s contribution to European real-world evidence research.
• Research Impact and REF2029: Dr Omar is now leading development of PIONEER as a potential 51cg REF2029 Impact Case, documenting its influence on research prioritisation, evidence synthesis, real-world data infrastructure, stakeholder engagement and prostate cancer care.

The original PIONEER programme has subsequently provided a foundation for continuing international real-world evidence research through PIONEER+ and UroEvidenceHub, extending the programme’s scientific and clinical impact beyond the original funded period.

Selected Previous Funding

• CATHETER II, NIHR HTA: £2,191,212, Co-Investigator and lead for evidence synthesis and methodological design.
• Cochrane Incontinence Group Infrastructure Funding, NIHR: £739,145, Co-Investigator.
• ESTER, NIHR: £295,515.80, Co-Investigator and lead for GRADE assessment and evidence synthesis.
• Electrical stimulation for overactive bladder/urgency urinary incontinence, NHS Grampian Endowment Research Grant: £11,973, Lead Methodologist.

Teaching Responsibilities

Dr Omar has more than 25 years of teaching experience across the UK and internationally, spanning undergraduate, postgraduate and professional education. He is a Fellow of Advance HE and holds a Master’s degree in Medical Education from the University of Dundee. His teaching encompasses curriculum development, assessment, research supervision and educational leadership, with particular expertise in evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews, GRADE, clinical practice guideline methodology and real-world evidence. Since 2011, he has served as the 51cg’s official Cochrane trainer.

At the 51cg, he has contributed extensively to the development and delivery of Global Health and Humanities (ME33GH), Evidence-Based Health (PU5031), Global Health (PU5505) and the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Methods for Health. More than 1,300 students have benefited from these teaching and curriculum activities.

In 2026, he was appointed Co-Coordinator of the Public Health Literature Review modules (QH5909/PU5936/PU5937) delivered across Aberdeen and Doha, contributing to course delivery, assessment, formative feedback and student support.

Dr Omar also teaches on the distance-learning MSc Clinical Trials programme at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/University of London, contributing to tutoring, assessment, examination setting and curriculum development. He has served as an examiner for the University of London MSc Public Health programme since 2010.

He has supervised more than 50 undergraduate and postgraduate students. His March 2025 promotion application recorded at least 12 Master’s Research Project candidates, and he has since supervised six additional 51cg MSc systematic review projects, bringing the current total to at least 18 MSc research projects. Two of the additional projects undertaken in 2025 have subsequently been published in CUAJ and BJU International, while four further MSc projects completed in 2026 are progressing towards publication.

He also supervises five University of Central Lancashire medical students undertaking a systematic review as guarantor and methodological supervisor. Many previous supervisees have published peer-reviewed research, presented at international meetings or received competitive awards. In 2026, he also began mentoring two colleagues towards FHEA/AFHEA recognition through the Advance HE Professional Recognition Scheme.

Non-course Teaching Responsibilities

Dr Omar has led and delivered more than 30 national and international workshops on systematic reviews, evidence-based medicine, GRADE and clinical practice guideline development, training more than 500 clinicians and researchers internationally. His educational activities have been delivered for organisations including the European Association of Urology (EAU), Cochrane, Société Internationale d'Urologie, International Urogynecological Association, UK Continence Society and NHS Grampian.

For the EAU Guidelines Office Methodology Workshop in Amsterdam in November 2025, Dr Omar led the development of the two-day programme, designed the programme, allocated sessions among the international faculty, and delivered three presentations. He is leading the development of the programme again for the 2026 workshop.

External Examiner

Dr Omar has served as an external examiner for the University of London’s postgraduate MSc Public Health programme since 2010.

Teaching Contributions to Other Higher Education Institutions, UK and International

Dr Omar contributes to the MSc Clinical Trials programme at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine/University of London across three modules: CTM104 Reporting and Reviewing Clinical Trials, CTM201 Protocol Development and CTM210 Integrating Module. His role includes tutoring, exam setting, marking, curriculum review and revision of teaching materials. In revising CTM104, he updated both the scientific and methodological content and contributed to decolonising the curriculum to improve inclusivity and global relevance.

In 2023, Dr Omar delivered an invited webinar, "Update from the Cochrane Network," for students at Medipol University, Türkiye.

In 2025–26, his teaching and supervision at the University of Central Lancashire expanded from the originally planned two students to five medical students undertaking a systematic review, for which he serves as guarantor and methodological supervisor.

In February 2026, he was invited to serve as a faculty member at the SIU-EAU Winter School in Fiesole, where he delivered two sessions on the critical appraisal of scientific guidelines and the influence of research on guideline recommendations. In March 2026, he was invited by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to teach systematic review methodology and real-world evidence.

Invited Talks and Chairing Roles

• October 2026, MMISU, Cairo: invited faculty for the 8th Annual Conference of Mediterranean Minimally Invasive Surgery in Urology, including an opening keynote on methodological gaps in endourology, a debate on the SIU-ICUD consultation on male LUTS, and moderation of a plenary session.
• June 2026, WFIPP Global Summit, Rome: invited speaker on The OPTIMA Experience: How Real-World Evidence Can Transform Continence and Pelvic Health Care.
• March 2026, EAU Congress, London: faculty member and Chair of an Expert-Guided Poster Tour.
• June 2023: faculty member on the international webinar Current Management of Small Renal Masses: Is There an Optimal Choice?, delivering Evidence-Based Medicine to a global audience of more than 15,000 through Zoom, YouTube, Weibo, OAE Live Streaming and Research Cloud.
• EAU Congress 2023, Milan: co-chaired a session on Guidelines and Evidence-Based Medicine with Professor Maria Ribal and Professor Steve Canfield.
• December 2022: chaired the ESU course Update on Male Urethral Stricture and Female Stress Urinary Incontinence at the national congress of the Algerian Association of Urology.
• EAU Congress 2022, Amsterdam: co-chaired a session on Evidence-Based Medicine and Education with Professor Maria Ribal and Professor Steve Canfield.
• June 2022: invited speaker on the Impact of the EU Health Data Space for the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine Expert Panel; the panel subsequently produced a peer-reviewed publication which he co-authored.
• October 2017, SIU Congress, Lisbon: chaired Assessment of Evidence-Based Medicine for Urological Practice, with Professor Faiz Mumtaz as faculty.
• March 2015, UK Continence Society, Aberdeen: delivered How to Conduct a Cochrane Review? and co-chaired the session with Professor Charis Glazener.
• July 2014, AUGS/IUGA Joint Meeting, Washington DC: led Systematic Review Using Cochrane Methods in a Morning, co-chairing with Professor Stephen Jeffery alongside an international faculty.