The NIHR Academy is responsible for the development and coordination of NIHR academic training, career development and research capacity development.
The academy plays a pivotal role in attracting, training and supporting the best health and care researchers to tackle the complex challenges of the future. The training and career development awards provided complement the additional NIHR investment in world-class research facilities and a skilled research workforce.
The purpose of the NIHR Academy is to develop a highly-skilled academic research workforce capable of advancing the best research, which improves health and benefits society and the economy.
The NIHR Academy was established in October 2018 following a strategic review of training across the NIHR to review the past and look proactively at future training needs. It set out a vision underpinned by a series of recommendations, which led to the re-shaping of the training programmes offered. The Strategic Review of Training report provides the strategy for the NIHR Academy to fulfill its purpose.
The NIHR Academy recognises and rewards:
There is a wide range of NIHR training and career development awards available at different levels, and accessible by different professional backgrounds. These awards are all managed by the NIHR Academy and comprise both personal awards, which can be applied for directly, and institutional awards which should be applied for through the host institution.
Some of these awards can be used to establish new partnerships with the life sciences industry and charitable organisations. These partnerships aim to help deliver research outputs quickly and push the boundaries of health and care research. You can find out more about our industry collaboration opportunities.
To find out more about the individual awards and career development training opportunities available, please visit the following pages:
The NIHR Academy comprises of members and associates. (Further information on people across NIHR who are members and associates can be found in Appendix 1)
There are two categories of individuals belonging to the NIHR Academy:
Members include those on an NIHR academic path and those who play a recognised NIHR role supporting academic career development. They form a key part of the national health research system that is the NIHR.
NIHR Academy Members range from Masters Studentships through to Professorships and Senior Investigators. Membership includes individuals based in both domestic and global health research settings. Some also work closely with industry, developing a cadre of research leaders with combined academic, NHS and industry insight and experiences.
Members are able to access a portfolio of NIHR Academy development and support activities. They are able to access NIHR research training and career development programmes to help ensure that their research meets the current and future needs of patients and the public, as well as developing and sustaining training routes for research skills to support the development of future leaders across all professions and disciplines.
Members are invited to join peer group communities to help enhance the career development support to members and facilitate networking opportunities around our research capacity development activities. They also play a key role in the strategic direction and development of the NIHR Academy through representation on the NIHR Academy Forum and other advisory groups.
In addition to the awards themselves, the NIHR also provides a range of leadership and mentoring programmes to complement its training programmes, regular networking opportunities, bespoke workshops and events and personal advice and guidance on funding opportunities.
All NIHR Members must demonstrate that their research projects have clear potential for benefiting patients within five years of completion and the NIHR expects the active involvement of members of the public in the research that it funds.
Associate Members are those who are part of the NIHR research training ecosystem. They are either on a research career trajectory or play an NIHR role in supporting research training.
Associates will have access to NIHR Academy webinars and online resources.
It is possible for individuals to move between the different categories and also move in and out of the NIHR Academy as part of career progression. NIHR will remain flexible and accommodate individual needs on a case by case basis.
* An NIHR Academy member based within NIHR Infrastructure or Capacity Building Structures should satisfy all three of the bullets points below:
** For ARCs, HPRUs and Global Health Research (GHR) Programmes funding can be from NIHR or from an official collaborating partner. For GHR Programmes, an official collaborating institution (‘Partner’ or ‘Collaborator’) is an organisation which holds a current collaboration agreement with the holder of the NIHR research contract to participate in global health research work, and which may or may not be in receipt of NIHR funds.
*** This includes: NIHR BRCs, PSTRCs, ARCs, HPRUs, SPCR, SPHR, SSCR and GHR Programmes.
