Professor Stephen Smith led the creation of the United Kingdom’s first Academic Health Science Centre with the merger of two NHS Acute Trusts and Imperial College London, becoming the first CEO and Principal in 2007 of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. These organisations are now an integral part of the NHS research structure that puts the UK at the forefront of translational and implementation research. His research with the MRC and the University of Cambridge was at the forefront of highlighting the role of angiogenesis in the non-pregnant and pregnant female reproductive tract in health and disease.