Autumn 2024 health and care professionals research internships now open

1 October 2024

NHS England South West are offering an expanded research internship programme for health and care professionals and practitioners (HCPs) for Autumn 2024. These personal development awards are part of extra funding from the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR). They aim to help HCPs become skilled researchers and research leaders as part of the NIHR research career funding programme.

The expanded internship award is for registered health and care professionals and practitioners who are:

In clinical or practitioner roles with little or no research experience to champion research or undertake activities to support and embed the application of research evidence in practice
In research delivery roles who want to use an internship to extend their research delivery skills, improve research delivery and engagement or gain experience in wider aspects of the research process
In enhanced or advanced practitioner roles who want to develop the research pillar of their role or develop team research culture and confidence
Aspiring to be clinical or practitioner academics who want to develop their research knowledge and skills to lay foundations for preparing to apply for a funding award, such as the Pre-doctoral / Doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship (PCAF/DCAF) and Pre-doctoral / Doctoral Local Authority Fellowship (PLAF/DLAF)

The award can be used build a plan for personal research development for advancing a research positive culture, embedding research into practice, building organisational research leadership capacity, advancing specialism of research delivery or clinical / practitioner academic development. This award is unlikely to suit those who have completed research masters or doctoral degrees.

Find out more about the programme in the guidance notes (PDF). They include information about how to apply and a link to the online application form. The deadline for applications is 6pm, Wednesday 18 December 2024.

There will be a webinar about the research internship opportunity on Thursday 7 November 2024, 12.30-1.30pm. Register your interest to attend.

Contacts

There is a network of contacts for the programme at universities in the South West. They can help with enquiries about applying for the award and potential supervisors with relevant expertise:

Bournemouth University: Prof Jane Murphy (jmurphy@bournemouth.ac.uk)
Health Sciences University, Bournemouth: Dr Michelle Holmes (mholmes@aecc.ac.uk)
Plymouth Marjon University: Prof Gary Shum (gshum@marjon.ac.uk)
University of Bath: Dr Tim Rennie (twr32@bath.ac.uk)
University of Exeter: Dr Sophie Gould (S.L.Gould@exeter.ac.uk)
University of Gloucestershire: Dr Liz Berragan (lberragan@glos.ac.uk)
University of Plymouth: Dr Lisa Bunn (lisa.bunn@plymouth.ac.uk)
UWE Bristol: Assoc Prof Mary Cramp (mary.cramp@uwe.ac.uk)

You can also email SW.ICAP@nihr.ac.uk for further information or advice.

Please note: the Pre-doctoral Bridging award and Post-doctoral Bridging awards previously offered as part of the South West Integrated Clinical and Practitioner Academic Programme are not available in Autumn 2024. Other NIHR awards to consider include: