Clinical Academic Research Partnerships
Are you a clinically qualified healthcare professional who would like to increase your research skills and experience?
We are currently recruiting for our BHP Clinical Academic Research Partnerships (CARPS) scheme, for entry in Autumn 2025. These post-doctoral fellowships are for clinically qualified staff who have completed training (medical consultants and non-medical staff with a PhD or MD) who currently do not have time allocated within their job plans for research. The scheme is supported by the Metchley Park Medical Society (MPMS), Birmingham NIHR ICAT programme and BHP member organisations.
To date, we have appointed eleven fellows to the scheme, supporting clinical research in areas including cellular therapy, paediatric congenital heart disease, and biomarker evaluation in bladder cancer.
BHP’s mission is to improve the health outcomes of individuals living in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands region. This mission is achieved by integrating, promoting and developing local strengths in health services through research and innovation, based on the principle that research and innovation are core requirements for delivering excellence in patient care. The CARP scheme is addressing the challenge of increasing the number of Chief Investigators associated with BHP.
Applications for 2025 are now open!
A new flexible route to re-engage and develop your research interests through collaborative high quality research partnerships with established leading biomedical and health researchers within BHP, facilitated by the University of Birmingham or Aston University.
- Salary funding for two programmed activities (PAs) – or 8 hours per week – of research time in your current job for a two year period
- Protected research time
- Access to infrastructure and expertise associated with a range of prestigious awards, including the NIHR Clinical Research Facility
- A bursary of up to £5k for consumables/additional training to undertake the project
Fellows will benefit from infrastructure and expertise associated with a range of prestigious awards, including the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre, NIHR Clinical Research Facility and NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery, as well as the UK’s only Centre for Patient Reported Outcomes Research and only joint academic-NHS BHP Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation. For individuals wishing to develop a clinical trial, they will be embedded within the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit or Birmingham Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit.
The fellowships provide protected research time and funding for healthcare professionals to increase their research skills and experience.
The scheme also enables the propagation of perspectives, ideas and connections needed to underpin future translational biomedical and health research.
Applications are welcomed from those who are a member of NHS staff within the BHP NHS Trusts. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Doctors
- Dentists
- Nurses
- Midwives
- Allied health professionals
- Healthcare scientists
- Pharmacists
- Clinical psychologists
- Registered public health practitioners
- Others, in either primary care, secondary care, community care or public health.
- Are working at consultant level if medical or at least Band 7 if non-medical – you should be working at a senior level with specialised knowledge and demonstrable capacity for professional independence and leadership
- Hold a PhD or MD
We expect you will have less than one programmed activity (PA) of research time in your current job plan, or 0.5 days protected research time in your job description if non-medical.
Please note that we are now running an additional scheme, the BHP New Consultants Award.
This is for medical consultants appointed to their first substantive post in the past 18 months and also supports 2 PAs per week of protected research time, and offers a £5k bursary, but has a 3 year duration.
Your research partner must hold a contract of employment with the University of Birmingham or Aston University for the duration of your award.
Your research partner must have a proven track record of securing peer-reviewed research programmes from funders such as UKRI, the National Institute for Health Research or significant third sector research funders for the duration of the planned partnership.
You must include a letter of support from the research partner as part of your application.
The NHS Trust that employs you must provide a commitment to:
- Support protected research time
- Ensure that you can re-enter a full-time clinical role without any loss of career progression or status at the end of the award, if you choose to do so
You must include a letter of support from your NHS Trust employer as part of the application which:
- Confirms that you will be released for the proportion of time funded by the BHP Clinical Academic Research Partnership Scheme
- Includes clear and feasible plans for your time to be backfilled, especially for applicants from niche specialties where this will present challenges
- Guarantees that you can return to your previous full-time role at the end of the award
- Salary funding for two programmed activities (PAs) – or eight hours per week – of protected research time in your current job plan, for a two year period. Please note that CARP funding is provided to your NHS employer retrospectively, covering the actual salary costs of your funded PAs.
- A £5k bursary for consumables expenditure or additional training to undertake the project. No additional support for salaries or other costs may be requested.
All awards will be on the basis of a full economic costing which should accompany the application.
Applicants will need to complete the following steps:
- Complete the BHP CARP Scheme Application Form 2025 (click link to download). Word limits must be strictly observed – applications exceeding word limits will be rejected without being read. No appendices or supporting documents will be accepted
- Provide a two page CV using the BHP CARP Scheme CV Template 2025 (click link to download).
- Provide a publications list for the Applicant and Research Partner (max one side of A4 per applicant)
- Provide a two page CV of the Research Partner
- Provide a letter of support from the Research Partner
- Provide a letter of support from your current employer
- Provide any additional letters of support for the application
- Submit all of the above to icat@contacts.bham.ac.uk by Monday 16 December 2024.
For further information or queries, please email Professor Lorraine Harper at icat@contacts.bham.ac.uk.
- Application deadline: Monday 16 December 2024
- Interviews: February/March 2025
- Award Initiation Deadline of 1 September 2025