Launch of the Researcher Development Awards

These awards are now closed to applications - please sign up to our bulletin to keep up to date on when they are next open.

The Health and Care Research Wales Faculty is pleased to announce the first round of the Researcher Development Awards is now open.

The Researcher Development Awards are personal awards which are intended to advance research careers for health and social care researchers in Wales. They offer protected time to engage in developmental research activities and allow for non-staff costs (such as travel and subsistence, public involvement costs, IT equipment). The schemes have been developed to provide flexible and inclusive support for researchers in the early and middle stages of their research careers. All applicants are expected to clearly justify why the specific scheme is appropriate for them at their research career stage.

The Emerging Researcher Award is designed to support individuals who are looking to take their first steps into a research career with the intention of putting the foundations in place for long term clinical and/or practice based academic research career (including PhDs by published works). The Emerging Researcher Scheme is open to individuals employed by either NHS or social care organisations in Wales.

The Advancing Researcher Award has been developed to help the progression of early to mid-career researchers as they transition to the next phase of their health and social care research career. The Advancing Researcher Scheme is open to early and mid-career researchers employed by Higher Education Institutes (HEI) or research active staff employed by NHS or social care organisations in Wales. 

The Personal Award Accelerator is a cohort-based programme which will run twice a year and support a small group of researchers to develop  competitive personal award applications at both doctoral and advanced stages to relevant UK funders including the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as well as major charitable funders like the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and  the British Heart Foundation. This award will provide opportunities for networking and internships that will enhance the likelihood of success in the proposed funding scheme. Award holders will be able to access methodological support aligned to progressing these applications.

The Personal Award Accelerator is open to early and mid-career researchers employed by Higher Education Institutes (HEI) or research active staff employed by NHS or social care organisations in Wales. NHS and social care employed staff are required to demonstrate the relevant support and hosting mechanisms are in place with a relevant Higher Education Institute should their application be successful. 

The application window opened on 14 September 2023 and closed at 16:00 on Thursday 26 October 2023.