NIHR Faculty: Funding for Research Training, Research Projects and Support

How NIHR Faculty members are funded

NIHR Faculty members' salary costs related to research are funded as follows:

• NIHR Investigators and Senior Investigators are funded by NIHR and Department of Health research projects, programmes, units, centres and schools;
  
• NIHR Associates are mainly  funded by NIHR Research Networks;
  
• NIHR Investigators, Senior Investigators and Associates can also be supported by NIHR Research Capability Funding (formerly Flexibility and Sustainability Funding) though this funding does not alone confer NIHR Investigator status anew;
  
• NIHR Trainees are supported by NIHR training schemes either managed, through the NIHR Trainees Coordinating Centre (NIHR TCC) or as NIHR-funded Students in Biomedical Research Centres/Units and Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care or through approved training programmes offered by NIHR Schools;
  
• NIHR Senior Investigators have a small discretionary fund, which can be spent, according to the Senior Investigator's employer's governance arrangements, at the Senior Investigator's discretion in support of people and patient-based research.

This mechanism ensures that Faculty members are funded on the basis of the scientific quality of their research and its relevance to NIHR concerns. Faculty members are supported through competitively-obtained NIHR research funding or training funding; or by NIHR infrastructure funding which supports NIHR research or research which has satisfied the competitive quality assurance processes of our partner research funders.

The NIHR contribution will more often than not make up only part of an NIHR member's salary with the remainder supported by other research, patient care or education funding - see the diagram below.

Faculty members' salaries may be supported by NIHR funds or DH Policy Research Programme (PRP) funds directly, or by funding transfer from an NHS organisation. The NIHR or PRP funds must support some of the research and related activities that the researcher carries out in the course of his or her job.

NIHR or PRP funding and Faculty membership do not imply an employment or quasi-employment relationship between a researcher and the NIHR.