The global organ shortage has necessitated the use of increasingly marginal livers for transplantation. The current standard method of liver preservation, static cold storage (SCS), is not suitable for many marginal organs, increasing the risk of significant complications or graft failure. Normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) enables the liver to be preserved in a functioning physiological state. Previous animal studies suggest this may improve the quality of organs after transplantation. This protocol relates to the first multi-national, randomised controlled clinical trial to directly compare SCS with NMP in human liver transplantation.