Queen Mary awarded funding for new Primary Care Research Fellowships

Nurse taking patient's blood pressure. Credit: iStock.com

NIHR SPCR is a collaboration of nine leading English academic primary care centres that excel in research into the first point of care in the NHS. The awards, with a total value of over £379,000, will support research to be conducted through the Centre for Primary Care in Queen Mary's Wolfson Institute of Population Health.

Queen Mary has excelled in securing three of thirteen fellowships conferred nationally:

• Dr Meredith Hawking was awarded a Post Doctoral Fellowship to study Everyday ethics in a pandemic: exploring (re)negotiated practices within households that include children with obesity.
• Dr Chris Carvalho was awarded a GP Career Progression Fellowship to research Improving primary care prediction tools to identify people with familial hypercholesterolaemia.
• Dr Sarah Spencer was awarded a GP Career Progression Fellowship to research Carer experiences of medication management within the General Practice consultation.

Chris Griffiths, Professor of Primary Care at Queen Mary, said: “Enabling early career researchers to develop their research expertise is just one of the benefits of membership of the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. These three talented local researchers will pursue the projects they have developed, supported by excellent senior supervision, leading in turn to further grant funding.”

About the NIHR SPCR

The fourth iteration of the NIHR SPCR commenced on 1 April 2021, with an award of £22 million for research. The school has also received funding of £10 million from the NIHR Academy to support capacity building in primary care research, including opportunities such as these three funded Fellowships.

The nine member institutions share their expertise with non-member institutions, with a strong emphasis on engaging, collaborating, and partnering with institutions beyond the School membership. Alongside Queen Mary, the current member institutions are University of Bristol, University of Exeter, University of Keele, University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, University of Oxford, University of Southampton and University College London (UCL).

More information

• A further call for SPCR Post Doctoral Fellowships is now open, with a closing date of 1 November 2021. This opportunity has local demand management. Please submit filled applications to Victoria Kemp by 5pm Friday 15 October 2021. To learn more, visit: https://www.spcr.nihr.ac.uk/career-development/funding.