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Attract, develop and retain researchers

The NIHR trains current and future researchers and build the capacity of the whole research workforce and support wider UK research competence.

Through the NIHR Academy, we offer a full career pathway for health, public health and social care researchers.

You can tap into points of this pathway that fit into your charity’s strategic needs, so your researchers can benefit from the support we offer and become part of the NIHR community.

By working together, we can align our activities to create a clear career pathway for researchers across the health and care professions and avoid duplication, producing bigger impact from our training and support.

We support a large community of researchers who span the medical, nursing and allied health professions. For example, a considerable proportion of NIHR career development funding goes to non-clinical researchers, such as academics and methodologists. We also have a specific role in developing the clinical academic career pathway.

By working with us, you can benefit from our unique cross-sector outlook and target specific groups of researchers, to diversify or bring in specific professions to your own networks.

Co-fund training

Together we can jointly fund career development fellowship awards for researchers, to help grow research capability and capacity in areas of shared interest.

By co-funding with us, you can buy into our existing fellowships programme and offer career development opportunities to researchers you support.

Your researchers on co-funded fellowships not only benefit from the funding award but also from being part of two active communities of researchers - your charity’s community and the NIHR Academy. Co-funded researchers will also have access to the other forms of career support NIHR offers, such as training courses.

Co-funding partnership opportunities are available at doctoral and advanced level, on a 50/50 arrangement, with the NIHR Fellowships Programme and the HEE/NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic (ICA) Programme.

We run the whole fellowship award funding and management process on behalf of charities we co-fund with.

Our fellowship co-funding partners

The NIHR has partnered with a number of charitable organisations to offer jointly funded NIHR Charity Partnership Fellowships, for example:

  • Castang Foundation
  • Cystic Fibrosis Trust
  • Diabetes UK
  • Kidney Research UK
  • Moorfields Eye Charity
  • MS Society
  • Pancreatic Cancer UK
  • Parkinson's UK
  • Pharmacy Research UK
  • Rosetree Trust
  • Stroke Association
  • Wellbeing of Women

Build career development support

Together we can create and provide a system of career development support and resources, to build research capacity and capability.

The NIHR Academy offers mentorship opportunities to NIHR-funded researchers, to help them learn and grow from the advice of more senior health and care researchers.

You can recommend senior researchers supported by your charity who may be interested in becoming an NIHR mentor, to support skills development in your area of interest.

We both have a wealth of expertise in good practice in health and care research and developing a research career; for example, in starting out in clinical trials or how to involve patients, carers and the public in research.

We can collaborate to develop training courses or workshops for NIHR-funded researchers, co-funded researchers and charity-funded researchers. By pooling resources in areas of mutual interest, we can collectively upskill the current and future research workforce.

Any researchers who receive co-funded career development awards become a member of the NIHR Academy - a community that provides them with access to events, networking, leadership development and online training.

We can work together to develop similar networks and communities in areas of shared interest, to provide access to these opportunities to charity-funded researchers and upskill the research workforce.