Nurses and Midwives
Find out about research career opportunities and how we can support you if you are a nurse or midwife in England.
We can help you develop your career in supporting, delivering or leading research.
Short internships to develop publication writing skills - Applications open!
How to get involved in research
As a nurse or midwife, you can help with research projects to improve services for patients and staff. You can also support people to take part in research trials.
Where to find out more
Find out about:
- What health and care research is and how you can develop your research knowledge and skills in the Research training and careers section
- health and care research taking place in your area. Contact your local Clinical Research Network
- the latest research findings to help you in your job. NIHR Evidence publishes summaries of recent study findings
You can also ask your employer’s research and development team about studies in your clinical area.
What do research nurses and midwives do?
You can become a research nurse or midwife as part of a research delivery team. The video below explains what research nurses do:
Responsibilities include:
- inviting people to join research studies
- caring for patients
- carrying out study procedures
- developing new treatments or procedures based on research findings
Training to support and deliver research
Good Clinical Practice (GCP)
If you support clinical research delivery at the NHS, UK universities and other publicly funded organisations in England, you need to do GCP training:
Courses on NIHR Learn
NIHR Learn is a free online learning platform that allows you to enrol on a variety of online and face-to-face training courses:
Training to lead research
Principal Investigator Pipeline Programme (PIPP)
Are you a research delivery nurse or midwife who wants to develop their research leadership skills?
The NIHR’s Principal Investigator Pipeline Programme (PIPP) aims to address some of the current gaps in career opportunities for research delivery nurses and midwives by supporting them to become Principal Investigators (PIs) to deliver NIHR portfolio studies.
Principal Investigator Pipeline Programme (PIPP)
Senior Research Leader - Nursing and Midwifery Programme
This three-year programme aims to develop nurses and midwives into senior research leaders. As a senior research leader, you can drive forward meaningful changes within your organisation and beyond.
Senior Research Leader - Nursing and Midwifery Programme
Short internships to develop publication writing skills - Applications open!
If you’re a research nurse or midwife who wants to develop their publication writing skills, apply for the NIHR Nursing & Midwifery Publication Internship.
What does the internship offer?
The internship will pay for your time to work with the Chief Investigator of a portfolio study to write a section of a publication.
An experienced author will mentor you.
We will reimburse your salary for 13 days over a three month period. This works out as 0.2 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) for your time.
Deadline for applications
Apply by Monday 18 December 2023.
How to apply
Please fill in the NIHR Nursing and Midwifery Publication Internship Application Form
Clinical academic career development opportunities
You can apply for research training awards through:
- The Health Education England (HEE) / NIHR Integrated Clinical and Practitioner (ICA) Programme
- NIHR Fellowships Programme
The Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award is a flexible post-doctoral award which provides funding for up to 5 years to focus on a broad range of research activities to support career development.
Need advice?
For advice on which scheme is right for you, call 0113 532 8444 or email academy-awards@nihr.ac.uk
Our plans to improve research opportunities
- The RISE (Research In Community Settings) project aims to develop research-related roles for nurses and midwives in community, public health, primary and social care settings
- NIHR Pre-Registration Nursing & Midwifery Research Delivery Awareness Programme is an interactive resource for students that launched in December 2023
- Hybrid research placement pilot for students
- Research to understand the enablers and barriers to research roles for nurses and midwives
70@70 Senior Nurse and Midwife Research Leader Alumni
The 70@70 Research Leader Programme was aimed at senior nurses and midwives to promote the importance of a vibrant integrated research culture. It finished in March 2022 and:
- implemented over 300 research initiatives
- reached more than 3,000 nurses and midwives
- increased the support, delivery and leadership of research by nurses and midwives across the health and care system
Examples of achievements:
- James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership for Community Nursing
- Census of nurses and midwives who identify as research nurses and midwives
- funding for senior clinical academic posts as a result of development and testing of an embedded researcher model
- developing a research champion model for community services and a research ambassador model in an acute Trust
Director of Nursing and Midwifery
Professor Ruth Endacott is the Director of Nursing and Midwifery at the NIHR
More information
Monthly newsletter
Sign up for the latest news, announcements, events and more:
Request to register for the NIHR Nursing and Midwifery Bulletin
Follow us on social media
Follow #NIHRNursingMidwifery
Contact
Please email nursingandmidwifery@nihr.ac.uk to find out more about how we can help improve career opportunities for nurses and midwives in research.
Key partners
We work closely with NHS England’s Chief Nursing Office to align our plans for research. Download the Chief Nursing Officer for England’s strategic plan for research (PDF)
We also work with:
- International Association of Clinical Research Nurses (IACRN)
- UK Clinical Research Facility Network (UKCRF)
Nursing and Midwifery Incubator
The NIHR Nursing and Midwifery Incubator has been established to accelerate capacity building and support the development of a skilled clinical academic research workforce across the nursing and midwifery professions.