Starter Fellowships
Are you a clinician interested in translational research? Would you like to undertake a PhD or MD but need the skills and experience to make the first step? Do you have an idea for a research project but need funding to develop an application for a competitive fellowship?
Birmingham Health Partners is proud to offer a fellowship scheme designed to provide the launch pad for clinicians interested in translational research.
These one-year fellowships are funded through the kind support of the Metchley Park Medical Society and BHP members including the University of Birmingham’s NIHR Integrated Academic Training programme. Since launching in 2014, we have appointed 32 fellows and are now recruiting for our 11th cohort.
This scheme offers an invaluable route into research, as evidenced by our successful fellows. To date, 76% of the award recipients have progressed to further funding, with 50% sourcing external awards from the BHF, Cancer Research UK and the MRC, amongst others. You can read more about their experiences below.
Applications for 2025 are now open!
Interested applicants are invited to join a Q&A session via Teams on Wednesday 6 November, 4-5pm.
To attend, please email icat@contacts.bham.ac.uk and the link will be sent to you.
The fellowships provide one year’s salary cost, and the programme is expected to be undertaken as a primary role, rather than alongside current activities.
Please note that the fellowship is taken up as an Out of Programme activity for resident doctors and on a secondment basis for non-medical applicants.
In addition, a consumables and training bursary of £5000 is provided by the ICAT programme. Successful completion of the year-long research will result in the award of MSc by Research.
As an employee, participants will have full access to educational facilities at the University of Birmingham or Aston University.
The salary offer is usually on the following basis:
- Resident doctors: a maximum salary of ST6 (nodal point 5) on the 2016 Doctors in Training Scale
- Non-medical applicants: a maximum salary of band 8a of the NHS AfC salary scale
All applicants must:
- Hold a clinical or medical qualification
- If in possession of a medical qualification, must also have a postgraduate qualification such as the MRCP or equivalent. A National Training Number is desirable
- Resident doctors must be at Specialty Training Level 6 (or equivalent salary) or under at the commencement of the fellowship
- Non-medical applicants must be at NHS Band 8a or below at the commencement of the fellowship
- If an Academic Clinical Fellow, you must clearly justify why this post is necessary and why you are not applying for a national award
- Have identified an area of research and a supervisor who must hold a substantive contract as a consultant or scientist within Birmingham Health Partners organisations
- Have the full support of their clinical supervisor/manager to undertake the one-year fellowship
- Have agreement from the supervisor/manager to cover any additional consumable costs of the project to be undertaken during the fellowship
- Have clear plans for the provision of further funding with specific funding streams (fellowships, project grants) identified
We particularly encourage applications with a focus on: applied health research; translational research; or bioinformatics research using big data. The scheme will not fund projects that involve animal research.
Applicants will need to complete the following steps:
- Complete the BHP Starter Fellowship Application Form 2025 (click link to download). Word limits must be strictly observed, as applications exceeding word limits will be rejected without being read. No appendices or supporting documents will be accepted
- Provide a two page CV of the applicant using the BHP Applicant CV Template 2025 Entry (click link to download).
- Provide a two page CV of the supervisor
- Submit all of the above to icat@contacts.bham.ac.uk
The deadline for all applications is Monday 16 December 2024. Interviews will take place in Spring 2025, with successful fellows commencing in the autumn.
For further information please email Professor Lorraine Harper at icat@contacts.bham.ac.uk.
