Intensive care consultant Warwick Butt is a globally decorated clinician, teacher and researcher. As group leader of the Intensive Care Research Team (Royal Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute), his program continues to produce high-quality evidence-based research that is impacting the care and improving the trajectories of critically ill children. Through extensive global collaboration and collaborative research Warwick has enabled and accelerated the translation of research into clinical care to improve the quality of life of children after time spent in intensive care. With a particular focus on assessing and predicting the outcome of children after ICU and the efficacy of Extra Corporeal Life Support for critically ill children, Warwick’s expertise is acknowledged by his selection as Chair of key governance committees across Australia (ANZICS-Paediatric Study Group and Victorian ECMO service), invited presentations at the World Congress and leading paediatric US institution and both editorial board and frequent manuscript review for all major world intensive care journals as well as and cardiology, perfusion and anaesthesia. As Director of the ICU at the Royal Children’s Warwick’s research has been driven by the desire to deal with unmet clinical need. The impact of his research is evident by the use of ECMO across Australia and New Zealand.