NUM Study Network Critical Care
CCR Frankfurt is co-hosted by Study Network Critical Care from the Network of University Medicine (NUM). SN CritCare is Germany's new national study network for critical care.
SN CritCare is part of the Network of University Medicine (NUM), the alliance that connects all 37 university hospitals in Germany in one shared research infrastructure, so that German university medicine can act as one. Within it, SN CritCare is the dedicated clinical study network for critically ill patients with acute organ dysfunction.
For the first time, SN CritCare unites more than 250 intensive care units across the country in a joined critical care study network. It is interdisciplinary and interprofessional by design, spanning paediatric and adult intensive care and every discipline and profession that cares for these patients, and brings together more than 500 experts from all 37 university sites. It is built on collaboration: a network between networks that connects the study centres, organ-specific research communities and trials groups that already exist and gives them one shared, research-ready infrastructure.
Our ambition reaches beyond Germany. Our mission is to grow into a network among networks internationally, so that a question asked in Germany can be answered across the world. CCR Frankfurt is where that community comes together. As co-hosts, we look forward to welcoming to Germany the clinicians, researchers and trial methodologists shaping the future of critical care research.
Patrick Meybohm
Prof. Dr. med. Patrick Meybohm is Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care, Emergency and Pain Medicine at the University Hospital Würzburg. He studied and obtained his doctorate at the Georg-August University in Göttingen before starting his further training as an anaesthesiologist/intensive care physician at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel. In 2009 followed the habilitation, in 2012 the move to the University Hospital Frankfurt, and in 2020 his current position in Würzburg.
His research area is intensive care, perioperative outcome, preoperative optimisation of high-risk patients and patient blood management. He is principal investigator of several clinical trials and is (co-)author of more than 500 original and review papers. As co-coordinator of SN CritCare, Germany's national critical care study network, he co-hosts CCR 2027.
Carina Benstöm
Prof. Dr. rer. medic. Carina Benstöm, M.Sc. is Professor at University Hospital RWTH Aachen. Appointed junior professor in 2020 and full professor in 2022, she is the only scientist in Germany representing health services research in intensive care and a methods expert for clinical trials in this field. Her research focuses on evidence-based health research and clinical trial methodology in critical care. She has (co-)coordinated numerous large national and international multicentre trials, including StartCABG, Sustain and TELnet@NRW, and is a published Cochrane author.
Carina serves as an EBM methods expert for the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) and the German Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI), and as scientific coordinator for S3 AWMF guidelines. For the EIT Health MACH project, which achieved CE certification and market entry of a new cardiac assist device for children, she received the Horizon Impact Award from the European Commission. As co-coordinator of SN CritCare, Germany's national critical care study network, she co-hosts CCR 2027.
Christian Stoppe
Dr. Stoppe, a Professor of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Würzburg University in Germany, leads several international clinical trials in the field of clinical nutrition. He has established a global clinical research group dedicated to interventional nutrition studies in collaboration with partners worldwide.
The recipient of numerous research grants—including awards from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and other third-party funders—Dr. Stoppe’s research spans nutrition studies, perioperative optimization, functional outcomes and risk assessment, guideline development, translational research, and organ protection. His work focuses particularly on cardiac surgery, severe burns, and critically ill patients.
With more than 290 publications to his name, Dr. Stoppe is a frequent speaker at international conferences. He serves as Section Chair of the Feeding, Rehabilitation, Endocrinology & Metabolism section within the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Additionally, he contributes to and coordinates several European, American, German, and Canadian guideline initiatives and holds a position on the executive board of the ERAS Cardiac Society.
Rob Mac Sweeney
Rob Mac Sweeney is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the founder and director of Critical Care Reviews, an international educational platform dedicated to identifying, appraising and communicating important developments in critical care research.
Since establishing the Critical Care Reviews website in 2009, Rob has developed a wide range of resources, including daily literature surveillance, a weekly newsletter, podcasts, annual books, major trials collections and international meetings. His work focuses particularly on the interpretation of randomised clinical trials and on making complex evidence accessible and clinically meaningful. He founded the Critical Care Reviews Meeting in 2013, which has become a leading forum for the presentation and discussion of major critical care trials.