News

The NIHR Academy has announced new initiatives that will expand its provision of training and career development opportunities for health and social care professionals. These include more opportunities at all levels of a research career from undergraduate through to  postdoctoral. There will also be more support for those in underrepresented professions, to ensure a diverse range of people enter and are successful in a career in research.

In particular, the NIHR Academy wants to attract more nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and other registered health professionals, public health and social care practitioner academics, and those working in the fields of multiple long-term conditions and dementia.

Many existing NIHR Academy programmes will be expanded through increased investment, building on the success of these established programmes in the following ways:

• Awarding more Advanced Fellowships and IAT Clinical Lectureships
• Expanding the Development and Skills Enhancement Award to accept applications outside the NIHR Academy Membership
• Increasing investment in the Integrated Clinical and Practitioner Academic (ICA) Programme
• Supporting new medical schools to establish local Integrated Academic Training programmes
• Expanding the number of NIHR Incubators

New funding awards will also be created through:

• New programmes aimed at students, including a fully funded internship programme and an institutional award that offers regional research engagement programmes and funded masters places
• A new pre-application support fund to help underrepresented professions and groups to make the next step in their research career
• A new Team Science Award, and associated event, initially focused on multiple long-term conditions

The initiatives include:

New e-learning content - NIHR has also invested almost £1 million to create a new programme of e-learning content for health and care professionals with an interest in research. The online modules are free to use and are open access. They are ideal for health professionals interested in a research career, even if they have little or no research experience so far.

Research career support for students - schemes to give students insight into research careers in health care, social work and public health. The schemes provide opportunities for institutions and researchers to showcase research to students. They aim to support those at an early stage as they embark on their professional careers.

Expanding the NIHR Incubator Programme - NIHR Academy has announced that it will fund 10 Incubators to support academic research career capacity. The NIHR Incubator programme was established in 2018. They encourage networking, training and career development support for health and care professionals. All 10 Incubators will start their set-up phase from 1 July and begin in January 2024. NIHR will support them for three years.