Smartphone eye disease screening project awarded £120,000 by Innovate UK

Birmingham City University (BCU) researchers have received £120,000 in funding from Innovate UK for a project that aims to create an evaluation framework for smartphone eye disease screening technology.

The Sightmark-AI research project aims to standardise infrastructure for healthcare testing in collaboration with Black Space Technology and Oui Inc.

BCU principal investigator, Dr Martin Esugo, highlighted that eye disease takes an irreplaceable sense from individuals.

“I find it hard to accept that so much of it is preventable if it’s just caught in time,” he said.

“The work we do here, such as ensuring the data is correct, and making sure annotations are trustworthy, could be the difference between someone getting diagnosed early or not at all, especially in places where a proper eye clinic is simply out of reach,” Esugo shared.

The goal of the research is to create an evaluation framework that other researchers and companies can use to test smartphone fundoscopy artificial intelligence systems.

BCU head of computing, Professor Junaid Arshad, highlighted that the research demonstrates how advanced digital innovation can directly transform healthcare.

“By turning accessible mobile imaging into reliable, clinical-grade diagnostics, we are proud to deliver on BCU Strategy 2030's mission to create knowledge for good,” he said.

“We are setting new standards for patient safety and driving the trustworthy adoption of AI in modern medicine,” Arshad added.