His main research interests are to understand the importance of classical and novel risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. He worked on analyses of observational studies and trials in the UK and meta-analyses of international consortia of observational studies, genome-wide association studies and randomised trials for heart disease and stroke.
Over the last decade, Robert's research work has focussed on understanding the causes of stroke and heart disease (ischaemic heart disease and heart failure) in the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB). His research work in CKB includes studies of the diagnostic accuracy, prognosis, treatment, risk prediction and evaluation of genetic and plasma biomarkers for stroke types and ischaemic heart disease and heart failure in CKB and related studies in the department and international consortia.