The Seedcorn Bridging award for 2025 is now open.
Applicants need to liaise with Juliet.Henderson@qmul.ac.uk for an application form to apply to her by 14th February 2025. The internal QMUL panel will review all applications and nominate one Seedcorn award applicant and one bridging award applicant for 2025. Applicants who have been told they are successful internally then will have applications submitted by 12th March externally. The external board will need to ratify the QM decision. Awardees can commence their funding from 1 April 2024. The amount available is £10,000 for a Seedcorn and £10,000 for a Bridging awardees each year.
The School has several funding opportunities for those who want to start or continue their career in primary care research. Currently the School holds annual competitions for post-doctoral Fellowships, PhD Studentships and General Practice Career Progression Fellowships.
SPCR PhD Studentships
QMUL had allocated funding to support one studentship per year 2021-2024. These Studentships offered traditional project-specific training in areas of particular importance to primary care and were awarded to applicants from diverse academic backgrounds including e.g., medical statistics, social sciences, health economics, and health psychology.
Please note the last year for applying is 2024 and this PhD place has now been allocated.
Wellcome-funded PhD Programme for Primary Care
QMUL leads the Wellcome-funded PhD Programme for Primary Care Clinicians. We build upon the success of the last Wellcome-funded flagship programme which supported 5 years of enrolment from 2017-2025. The scheme is aimed at supporting the most promising medically qualified clinicians who wish to undertake rigorous research training, leading to the award of a PhD.
2024 workshop recording overview for potential candidates commencing in October 2025 can be accessed here
SPCR Postdoctoral Fellowships
Please note there are no more of these fellowships funded in 2024-2027.
QMUL put forward candidates for these Postdoctoral Fellowships. Candidates entered into a competitive process with applicants from the other eight members of the School. These awards covered a 24 months fellowship period. Applicants were required to have a strong academic record and to have shown development in their careers in primary care research. The fellowship offered scope for career progression by providing the opportunity to: design an independent research project, conduct the research, analyse data, publish the results and prepare for grant applications to secure future funding. Allied health professional staff were encouraged to apply.
SPCR Primary Care Clinicians Career Progression Fellowship
Please note there are no new fellowships of this type to be funded.
From 2021 - 2023 QMUL could put forward candidates for these Primary Care Clinicians Career Progression Fellowships. Candidates entered into a competitive process with other applicants from the other eight members of the School. These awards covered a 12 month fellowship period and took up 0.5 FTE to allow clinical work to continue.
SPCR Annual Internship
Each year for the six years of the SPCR (2021-26) QMUL has funding to support internships for undergraduate students. Students from a number of disciplinary backgrounds are able to apply as long as they can demonstrate an interest in primary care research. These are short term internships over the summer months. They normally comprise of a particular piece of work that academics or practitioners have designed which take place in a research environment.
Seedcorn and Bridging awards - (The 2025 award will be launched in early December 2024)
This award is provided every year and can be used to support researchers from any professional background for short periods of time, usually up to a maximum 1-year duration, while they develop applications for national training awards or external grant funding. Recipients should use the funded time to focus on their career development, building networks and working with local supervisory teams/mentors. The amount available is £10,000 for a Seedcorn, and £10,000 for a Bridging awardees each year.
Oxford International Primary Care Leadership Programme 2024
International universities are invited to nominate one suitable candidate for this prestigious programme. The programme combines theory and practice and enables primary care future leaders to reflect on their own individual research setting. It also assists with the development of personal leadership skills and ways of working which are relevant to individual's research careers.
This is delivered over three sequential residential meetings in Oxford, held over a three-year period. Across the three meetings, participants will experience seminars from leading experts, masterclasses, practical learning, small group reflective work, action learning sets and one-to-one coaching. More details are available here