PCR CEO, Oliver Kemp, receives MBE in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours

2025 has been a busy year, both for PCR and for me personally. One of the big surprises was being nominated in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours for services to prostate cancer research.   

I had no idea that I’d been nominated by one of PCR’s previous Trustees, Matt Newcombe-Ellis. So, receiving an official looking letter through the post with the mark of the Central Chancery of Orders of the Knighthood was a huge surprise, and an entirely surreal experience. My disbelief turned to a feeling of pride as I read the application Matt had submitted and realised how much the team at Prostate Cancer Research had achieved.  

Over the Christmas break, I’ve had the opportunity to pause and reflect, not just on the honour itself, but on the journey that has brought us here as a charity since I was appointed CEO 8.5 years ago. 

At that time, PCR was a much smaller organisation. We were funding three research projects at a single university in London and one in Cardiff, had an annual income of around £1M and a team of only 6 staff members. Even then, what stood out was the belief that prostate cancer deserved more attention, better science and faster progress. 

Since then, we’ve delivered major change and reached key ambitions through bold collaboration, hard work, and innovation. 

Our research programme now funds over 20 projects, and we have grown into a £5M organisation with 49 staff members. We fund translational research, and not only have we invested in 6 biotech companies, but we have also created the Translating and Accelerating Research Network, which brings together academia, industry, healthcare and charities to share learning and accelerate patient outcomes. This collaborative model reflects how we believe progress happens. 

Patients are at the heart of everything we do, and our work has expanded beyond the lab. Our Patient Advisory Board ensures that patients and families participate in major decisions, and our patient community has grown to over 150,000 people. 

The Infopool, PCR’s leading patient education and empowerment digital platform, is recommended to patients by the NHS, and provides clear, accessible and trusted information to hundreds of thousands of people, empowering them to engage confidently in decisions about their care.  

We’re excited to have developed Prostate Progress, our platform that integrates NHS data with patient experience data to improve prostate cancer care and ultimately save lives.  

The platform is the first of its kind in the UK and provides a holistic understanding of a patient’s experience. It is opening the door to better personalised treatments, faster access to clinical trials and better information to support life-changing decisions.  

We also now have the capacity to influence national policy, including campaigning for a national screening programme which people across the country are demanding. Prostate cancer is back on the national agenda, and PCR’s voice is being heard in the corridors of power. 

I am really proud of how we’ve placed equity at the centre of our mission. Black men are at higher risk of prostate cancer, with 1 in 4 diagnosed in their lifetime. Diagnosis is often late and survival impacted, yet there is no routine screening for Black men.  Men from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds also face worse prostate cancer outcomes, including later diagnoses and higher mortality. PCR is focussed on tackling inequity as a core principle of our work. We have invested £2M in closing this gap so far by launching targeted grant calls, funding 8 research projects focused on racial disparities and developing our Empowering Communities programme, co-created with Black men, to help build trust in healthcare and medical research within the Black community.

Receiving an MBE is a huge personal honour, but it belongs to the team, not to me. It reflects the commitment of PCR, our researchers, supporters, partners, and, most importantly, the patients and families we serve. Every day, I am inspired by their resilience, insight and compassion. 

Technological and research advances are bringing us closer to a future free from prostate cancer. We must continue to listen to the science, work innovatively and collaboratively, and be bold in our solutions. Because the work is far from finished. 

For me, thinking about work is rarely a 9-5 job, as some of the best ideas or the most critical meetings happen outside of office hours. So, I want to express how grateful I am to my family and friends for their support, for listening to my ideas, sponsoring me to do mad fundraisers, helping take care of the kids, and to everyone who has supported me over the years.   

Meeting families affected by prostate cancer is a privilege and I have been so grateful to our supporters for investing in PCR’s work as well as sharing their personal stories with me. Your stories inspire and motivate me daily and have sparked some of the charity’s best ideas and activities. 

I work with brilliant people and it’s a joy to work alongside such passionate, dedicated and skilled staff and Trustees, all devoted to delivering change for people with prostate cancer. Thank you for everything you do in our pursuit of saving more men’s lives. 

The things that we’re working on now, the seeds that we’re planting, feel incredibly exciting and will deliver real change.  

Being CEO of PCR is an honour in itself. This is an exciting, innovative place to work and I am so grateful to everyone for making my job feel more like an adventure! Thank you to all the people who have been part of the journey.