Over the last 20 years Professor Ollier’s research interests have focused on investigating the genetic basis of common complex disorders. These have centred primarily on rheumatic, inflammatory, autoimmune and neurocognitive disorders. He has also been a pioneer of using genetic studies of diseases in pedigree domestic dog breeds to provide a comparative approach to identifying human homologous disease genes. Professor Ollier was one of a small number of UK scientists who proposed the initiation of a new large UK longitudinal health cohort to study the contributions of genes and environmental factors to the development of common diseases. This evolved into UK Biobank and he has maintained a close input into this initiative through his long-term role on the UK Biobank Board of Directors. He was also a founder Board member of the international Public Population Projects in Genomics (P3G) and he has played a major role in a number of major international longitudinal health studies.