MEDICAL researchers at Keele University have received an award from the Queen.

The university's Primary Care Sciences Research Centre, which focuses on chronic back pain and arthritis, has been awarded one of the Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education.

Since being founded in 1996, the centre has established long-term studies of pain involving more than 50,000 patients, and recruited 3,419 participants into nine trials.

Over the years it has attracted £27 million in funding from UK research bodies, and in 2008 was chosen to be the Arthritis Research Campaign's national primary care centre.

Professor Dame Janet Finch, Keele's Vice-Chancellor, visited Buckingham Palace to accept the award from the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh on Friday.

She said: "The university is extremely proud to receive this prestigious award, which recognises the outstanding work and dedication of the team in the Primary Care Sciences Research Centre at Keele.

"Practical applications of their research work have created beneficial results for the wider economic health of the nation, and the health and wellbeing of an ageing society, which has led to direct improvement in the quality of life for affected individuals."