Call for post proposals (posts starting 2024 and 2025)
Every 2 years, Queen Mary, in partnership with Barts Health Trust and Higher Education England (HEE), has the opportunity to bid for National Institute for Health Care Research (NIHR) Integrated Academic Training posts. These Specialist Training (ST)-level posts can be in any specialty, either at Academic Clinical Fellow (ACF) or Clinical Lecturer (CL) grades.
ACFs allow 25% of time to be dedicated to research over 3 years (4 years for General Practice) and are intended for pre-doctoral fellows with a view to successful applications for a competitive clinical research training fellowship. ACF posts will be ‘in addition’ and do not replace or take up existing clinical posts.
CL posts are post-doctoral awards and are also ‘in addition’, allowing 50% research time over 4 years.
Posts are awarded to the Queen Mary IAT on the basis of detailed individual projects and the supervisors for that project, as well as the broader track record of our Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and the programme. The NIHR limit the number of posts we can apply for and these are determined closer to the time of application. The application for posts is usually submitted in March and very little time is given between the launch of the bid details and the submission deadline.
While we cannot submit all projects proposed, we are keen to ensure as broad and as high a quality of projects around which to construct next year’s bid. Therefore, the purpose of this e-mail is to ensure that clinical academics are aware of the programme and have time to consider projects that may be suitable. Each specialty has a lead for the NIHR Integrated Academic Training programme and a list of these is attached.
Also attached is our internal application form, which we ask you to complete if you’re interested in hosting ACF and/or CL posts within your specialty over the next couple of recruitment years.
Please confirm on the form that the relevant Training Programme Director and, if relevant, the Head of School, are aware and approve the submission of a post in your specialty.
If you would like to propose a project for a post in the next round of applications, please contact your specialty lead or either Professor Korbonits or Professor Alazawi (co-leads for the programme at QMUL).
The next NIHR bid is due to open early 2023. Please submit expressions of interest using the attached form by Friday, 15th November 2022.