A team of researchers trying to stop strokes has been recognised with a top award.

The Oxford University Stroke Prevention Research Unit has been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education.

The unit was founded in 2000 by Prof Peter Rothwell to improve prevention of stroke and other chronic diseases in older people.

It now has more than 30 staff and runs several studies with 100 GPs in Oxfordshire.

This year, the unit became the Centre for Prevention of Stroke and Dementia.

The prize was announced on Thursday at St James’s Palace in London.

Prof Rothwell said: “We are thrilled that the research has been recognised by such a prestigious award, which reflects the hard work of the many staff on the unit as well as the support we have received from the university, funders, collaborating GPs and, crucially, from our patients.”

Prof Andrew Hamilton, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, said: “The unit has made a great contribution to the field of preventive medicine, revolutionising clinical practice across the globe.”

It developed the emergency treatment of “threatened” stroke to the more effective use of surgery, to remove a blockage in the carotid artery to prevent stroke.

Research had showed the risk of major stroke in the first few hours and days after more minor warning events – so-called transient ischaemic attacks – was higher than previously supposed. These warning events were then rebranded as a medical emergency in international guidelines.

Estimates are that 10,000 strokes a year in the UK, could be prevented saving £200m in annual NHS costs.