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developing leaders in
clinical and applied health and social care research |
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NIHR Faculty: Frequently Asked Questions
Ensuring quality and accountability
Q. What is NIHR Faculty and who is included?
A:
The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Faculty comprises all the people who:
- do or support health research for the benefit of patients in the NHS and the wider public, and ...
- who work for a UK university or NHS organisation and ...
- whose work is supported in part or in whole by NIHR or Department of Health Policy Research Programme (PRP) funding, directly or by funding transfer from an NHS organisation.
Q. What does it mean to be a member of NIHR Faculty?
A:
If a researcher is a member of NIHR Faculty this means that he or she:
- is engaged in, supporting or training in high quality people or patient-focused applied health research;
- is contributing to collective research endeavour in health and social care and may be expected reasonably to support to other NIHR Faculty members by contributing to peer review, serving on panels and disseminating research findings;
- is visible to other members of Faculty via a detailed and searchable directory of NIHR Faculty members, and is able to contact Faculty members with similar interests. The directory will be developed as the NIHR Portal is rolled out to authenticated users. More details will be provided here as soon as they are available.
- has access via the NIHR Portal to information about research activities and NIHR funding opportunities, the Research Passport, and to a set of online resources. More details will be made available here as soon as possible
- can compete for Senior Investigator status, if eligible to be an NIHR Investigator;
- can access leadership courses for research leaders with senior responsibilities in their organisations;
- can attend NIHR Faculty events including conferences, seminars and symposia, and Clinical Research Network research training events.
Q. What are the categories of membership?
A:
There are four categories:
- NIHR Trainee: NIHR Trainees will be the next generation of researchers. They are individuals whose salaries are supported by NIHR Training schemes for Clinical Lecturers, Academic Clinical Fellows, Research Fellows and Research Students and all Personal Award Schemes administered through the NIHR Trainees Coordinating Centre.
- NIHR Associates: NIHR Associates are funded by NIHR or PRP to support research led by others. The main NIHR part of their salary related to research will be a "Service Support Cost", met through funding for NIHR Research Networks. Their salary may, at local discretion, be funded in part from NIHR Flexibility and Sustainability Funding.
NIHR Associates have a key role in supporting research via activities such as enrolling patients into clinical trials, or doing lab-based analysis. This includes all clinical and clinical support staff who support research led by others including medical, nursing, pharmacy, imaging professionals, and healthcare scientists.
- NIHR Investigator: NIHR Investigators are directly engaged in doing research. The main part of their salary related to research is a "Research Cost". An NIHR Investigator's salary may also, at local discretion, be funded in part or in whole from NIHR Flexibility and Sustainability Funding.
NIHR Investigators include all research staff working on a research project including lead researchers, other senior researchers, and research assistants, and others in scientific, technical and other supporting roles. Their salary will be funded at least in part by NIHR Project, Programme, Unit, Centre or PRP funding.
- NIHR Senior Investigator: NIHR Senior Investigators will be the most outstanding leaders of patient and people-based research. They will be selected from NIHR Investigators through an open competition overseen by an international peer-review panel. NIHR Senior Investigators will form a college which will:
- provide research leadership to the NIHR Faculty. For example, they will help in planning and speaking at events, hosting visiting fellows or mentoring clinical trainees;
- provide expert advice to the Director of the NIHR;
- promote clinical and applied people-focused health research in the health and social care.
The NIHR College will be a prestigious body with a programme of events for members including an Annual Conference and awards ceremony.
NIHR Senior Investigators will receive the award of a £15,000 a year personal discretionary fund, to be spent flexibly at their professional discretion, within their employers' governance arrangements.
- NIHR Honorary Members: Honorary Membership was available for NIHR Faculty member's partners in research, including in industry who were not funded by the NIHR but who were making a major contribution to the work of the NIHR. Only a small number of Honorary Members were appointed and the category closed to new members in January 2010.
Q. What if someone is eligible for more than one category of NIHR Faculty membership?
A:It is possible to hold two or more categories of membership simultaneously. 'Examples of Faculty Members' provides a set of thumbnail sketches of members of NIHR Faculty, setting out how the membership will work in practice.
Q. How can researchers apply for membership, or become members of NIHR Faculty?
A:
Membership of the NIHR Faculty comes with a successful application for NIHR Funding (excluding R&D transitional funding which does not confer NIHR Faculty membership) :
- NIHR Trainees: : Details of how to apply for all the schemes which grant NIHR Trainee status are available here.
- NIHR Associates: Membership for NIHR Associates is automatic where an individual's research activities are supported in part or in whole by NIHR funding. This is likely to be via Clinical Research Networks. Systems to identify NIHR Associates are being developed alongside the authentication systems for NIHR portal users. We will be rolling both out during 2009.
- NIHR Investigators: Membership for NIHR investigator is automatic where a researcher is included in a successful application for NIHR or PRP research funding. Investigator status is gained when a research contract is issued and research commences. Details of current calls for research are available through Calls for Proposals.
Researchers who are already funded by NIHR or PRP are automatically NIHR Investigators. Researchers who are currently funded through transitional funding will not be members for the NIHR Faculty. Researches who become members of a research team undertaking NIHR/PRP funded research team automatically become NIHR Investigators as soon as their salaries become supported in part or in whole by the NIHR or PRP research funds.
Systems to identify new NIHR Investigators are in place, and we will roll out systems to identify currently funded NIHR Investigators during 2009.
- NIHR Senior Investigators: Only NIHR Investigators abd Honorary NIHR Investigators are eligible to apply to be Senior Investigators. Details of the NIHR Senior Investigators are available here
Q. What information does NIHR need to collect from members of NIHR Faculty, and why?
A:Information is collected on NIHR Trainees, Investigators and Senior Investigators in order that NIHR and the Department of Health can be accountable for the spending of public funds on the research workforce. Information includes sex, ethnicity and disability status. Identification details are needed so that the NIHR can know who it funds to do research.
Individuals will be asked to consent to their details being forwarded to the NIHR, and to being used in a secure directory of NIHR Faculty members. As Faculty members become authenticated users of the NIHR Portal they will be able to log in and update their own details.
More details will be available through the NIHR website and portal.
Q. Why does NIHR/PRP funding determine membership?
A:
The NIHR and PRP only fund research and work judged to be of high scientific quality that is relevant to patients, policy-makers and the NHS. If a researcher is supported by NIHR or PRP funds, the standard of their work will have already been assessed through peer review. To impose further checks on the quality and relevance of Faculty members' research is unnecessary.
NIHR Faculty FAQ: Finance
Q: How does NIHR / PRP funding determine membership of NIHR Faculty?
A:Membership of the NIHR Faculty is determined by the source of funds for salary and research activities. Faculty members are individuals:
- who conduct or support patient- or people-based research; and
- whose salary is funded, in part or in whole, from NIHR funding and/or DH Policy Research Programme (PRP) funding; and
- who are employed by an NHS organisation or by a University
The NIHR or PRP funding which supports a Faculty member's salary or research activities may be paid directly to their employer, or may be paid to a partner organisation which then makes a funding transfer to the Faculty member's employer.
Transitional Funding is not NIHR funding and therefore an individual whose salary is partly funded through this income stream is not a member of the NIHR Faculty.
Q: How should NIHR Senior Investigators discretionary fund be spent?
A:NIHR Senior Investigators' are awarded a recurrent NIHR Senior Investigator's Discretionary Fund of £15k. This may be used flexibly at their professional discretion, within their employers' governance arrangements.
The fund can be used to support staff salaries, between-grants maintenance, for attendance at conferences, travel and entertaining within the rule of the employer. Details of the governance of these funds will be found on the governance webpage in due course when Senior Investigators have been appointed.
Q: Are staff, including senior individuals, who are named on research grant applications without salary costs being claimed eligible for Investigator status?
A:Lead investigators or other members of a research team whose salary costs are not claimed on the finance section of a grant application are not NIHR Investigators, unless the application demonstrates that they will do significant work on the research project. In line with Full Economic Costing, there should be few individuals from universities in this category.
Q: Can researchers who are already funded as a member of NIHR Faculty apply for further NIHR, PRP or other research funding?
A:Yes. If NIHR or PRP funding makes up only a proportion of a Faculty member's salary, they may apply for further funding to support additional research activities.
If a Faculty member is entirely funded by NIHR or PRP money, none of which is Flexibility and Sustainability Funding (FSF), he or she can apply for further funds but must explain how the research will be delivered given that their time is fully committed. This may entail negotiation within the organisations contracted to do the research, and with the relevant National Coordinating Centres.
Where a component of a Faculty member's salary arises from NIHR Flexibility and Sustainability Funding, the FSF will be released when a new grant application is successful. The NHS organisation can use the FSF elsewhere to sustain research capacity.
Q: When does an individual's period of membership of Faculty begin and end?
A:
Membership of NIHR Faculty:
- applies to the period of the funding contract
- becomes active on the contract start date
- ceases on the contract finish date
- may continue if the contract is extended, including no-cost extensions
- may continue if the researcher's work is supported by Flexibility and Sustainability Funding
- ceases when employment ends with the employer whom funds are paid from NIHR or PRP, directly or via a funding transfer.
Q: Will researchers on short term NIHR or PRP research contracts cease to be members when contracts end?
A:Yes. NIHR Flexibility and Sustainability Funding will enable NHS organisations to 'smooth' these transitions, cover gaps between contracts and reduce the extent to which this occurs.
Q: What happens if a member of NIHR's role changes significantly, if they retire, or move between employers?
A:If a member of NIHR Faculty's role changes so that they move from one research project team to another, move to a new employer, leave employment (include retiring), their employer (the original employer in the case of moves) should inform the appropriate NIHR Coordinating Centre.
If a member of NIHR Faculty's role changes such that part of their salary is no longer funded by NIHR to undertake or support research, they will cease to be a member of the NIHR Faculty.
Changes of role or organisation will only affect an NHS organisation's Flexibility and Sustainability Funding allocations where there is an associated change to NIHR payments to the NHS organisation.
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