Build a competitive application with the 5Ps - Health and Care Research Wales Fellowship Week 2025

Fellowships provide funding for individual researchers to move towards research independence. A fellowship award provides funding for time to devote to your own research and to enable you to develop as a research leader.  

Fellowship Week will be a series of lunchtime sessions running from 15 to 19 September 2025 led by our Faculty Researcher Development Advisors (RDAs), Dr Martin Elliott and Dr Claire O’Neill.  

In these sessions, they will share insights and strategies to help you prepare a competitive fellowship application. Drawing on the 5Ps approach – Person, Place, Project, Plan and Patient and Public  Involvement (PPI). 

Dr Claire O’Neill, Health and Care Research Wales Faculty Researcher Development Advisor, said:  

“Applications for fellowships are highly competitive but developing a fundable application for a fellowship award requires you to think differently about your research.  

“The application for a fellowship is about you, where you are, how you will work and how you will engage and involve the public, patients and service users. The Faculty 5Ps approach is about supporting you to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to make a fundable application.” 

The 5Ps is an online library of resources developed by Faculty RDAs with input from Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leaders and other members of the Faculty community. During Fellowship week the each of the 5Ps will be looked at to explore the key ingredients of successful applications: 

• Day 1: Person – What do you need to tell the funder about you as an individual, as a researcher and as a leader - how can you do that? 
• Day 2: Place – How will you convince the funder that you have identified the right collaborations and expertise when building your mentoring team and choosing your host organisation?
• Day 3: Project – Have you identified an important and answerable question? Do your methods and aims align? Can you get the data you need?
• Day 4: Plan – Will the funder be convinced that you can do the things you say you are going to do - on time and on budget?
• Day 5: PPI – Is your research question relevant to patients and the public? Does it meet the needs and priorities of service users and those who care for and support them? Do you know your study design and data collection techniques will work and be acceptable to patients and the public?  

While the 5Ps approach underpins the Faculty’s personal awards, the framework is equally relevant when preparing award applications for other funders.  

Register now.

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