Health and Care Research Wales Advanced Fellowship award

Health and Care Research Wales is pleased to announce the call for applications to the Advanced Fellowship scheme is now open.

This scheme will close to applications on Wednesday 15 January 2025 at 16:00. Late applications will not be considered.

Apply now using the Faculty Awards Management System

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Remit of the call

The Advanced Fellowship Award aims to support individuals to become independent researchers through leading and undertaking high-quality research. 

The fellowship offers up to 3 years full-time funding, or up to 6-years part-time funding, to individuals who have been awarded their PhD (at the latest by the point of interview) and do not hold a professorial level appointment at the point of application. 

Applications are invited from individuals working across any health or social care-related discipline to undertake research which will benefit the public, health service, practice or policy, service users and carers, or social care and support services in Wales. 

The research element of the Advanced Fellowship should have clear relevance to the public, health or social care service users, carers, practitioners and policy makers. The research should provide robust evidence to support the efficient and effective organisation and delivery of health and/or social care services in Wales, and/or improved service user or carer wellbeing. 

Evidence syntheses and meta-analyses can be incorporated within applications.  Projects focused on pilot and feasibility work, or the early stages of intervention development where knowledge obtained from these preliminary studies will inform future larger scale studies, are eligible.   

All applicants are expected to clearly articulate the likely impact of their findings in the short to medium term and explain how these will benefit the provision of health and/or social care services, the public or service user/carer wellbeing. 

Need and importance  

The Advanced Fellowship scheme offers funding opportunities across a broad range of health and social care-related topics. While all applications meeting the general terms of the call are eligible, Health and Care Research Wales places an emphasis on policy, practice and public need. All applicants will need to make a strong case for the need for and importance of their research proposal.

This will include:  

• a clear description of the health or care need they are addressing;  
• the placing of the research proposed in the appropriate policy or practice context; 
• a justification of the importance of that need, in terms of the scale of the problem and/or likely impact on those with the health or care need;  
• a demonstration of a gap in the research evidence 
• demonstration that the methods proposed are suitable for answering the research question. 

Eligibility 

Applicants must satisfy the following criteria:  

• Applicants must be based at an institution or organisation in Wales at the time of applying (or be in receipt of a job offer such that they will be employed by a host institution in Wales at the time the Fellowship starts)

• Applicants will need to be able to undertake their award for up to three years (full time) or up to six years (part time) with a Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) of between a minimum of 50% and a maximum of 100% (full time). The cost of the whole award will not exceed £600,000 
• Applicants must hold a research PhD
• Health and Care Research Wales will also accept applications from applicants who have submitted their PhD thesis, or equivalent, to their institutions for assessment, provided they have been awarded their PhD by the point of interview
• Applicants must not hold a professorial level appointment at the point of application
• Individuals are eligible to be awarded up to two Advanced Fellowships sequentially, not normally totalling more than 6 years 100% WTE of funding
• Applicants must be supported by a named academic mentor
• Applicants must be in a position to commence activities by 1 October of the relevant year of the award
• Applications must have the support of the Host Institution and any other organisation integral to delivery of the research
• Applications must include a clear and comprehensive training and development programme
• Applicants applying for a full time Fellowship who are active clinicians or practitioners can dedicate an appropriate proportion of time to ensure maintenance of clinical or practice competencies 
• Applicants may have successfully held up to two previous post-doctoral awards upon application to this scheme

Assessment Criteria

Applications will be judged on the potential and trajectory of the applicant as a researcher, the quality of the research proposed and of the academic and institutional support, and the training and development programme proposed. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate evidence of relevance to the public and/or service user community; feasibility of practical application; likely benefit and value for money. Applicants must also clearly justify the appropriateness, soundness and demonstrate rigour in methodology and design. The peer review process aims to utilise public, service user, health and social care practitioners and academic reviewers within the Panel and will seek expert review outside of the Panel as needed.

The applicant will need to describe how they will report on expected findings in such a way that the research outcomes are open to critical examination by peers. Outputs from the scheme are likely to take the form of both peer-reviewed academic publications, and publications or other outputs designed to reach a wide practitioner and service user audience. Outputs are expected to influence the ways in which health and/or social care services are delivered.

Applications will be subject to examination to ensure fit with the scheme’s remit and eligibility conditions. All applications deemed to be eligible will be reviewed for policy relevance and significance. This will include an assessment of the application’s relevance to broader Welsh Government policy and an assessment of the need and importance section. Applications not progressed beyond this initial triage will be informed in writing.   

Applications passing the triage stage will be reviewed by the Health and Care Research Wales Shortlisting Panel that will assess the all-round quality and merit of the application, the applicant and the proposed host research environment along with the training and development programme. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview with the Panel.

The Panel will make funding recommendations to Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government). Health and Care Research Wales (Welsh Government) will make the final funding decisions, considering the strength of Panel recommendations and available resources. These decisions are final and are not open to appeal. 

Health and Care Research Wales Faculty expects to inform all applicants of the outcome in June 2025.

Further information can be found in the Guidance Notes for the call.

Assessment Process

The assessment process is as follows: 

• All applications are initially reviewed to check they are within the programme and call remit and to identify any that are clearly not competitive*. 
• Applications are prioritised by the Shortlisting Panel based on the assessment criteria for funding
• Shortlisted applications will be sent out for external expert and public review where this is deemed necessary prior to the applicant being called for interview by the Panel
• Applicants will be asked to provide a short presentation and answer questions from the Panel
• The Panel makes funding recommendations to Health and Care Research Wales. 

*‘Not Competitive’ means that a proposal is not of a sufficiently high standard to be taken forward for further assessment in comparison with other proposals received, because it has little or no realistic prospect of funding. This may be because of scientific quality, cost, scale/duration, or the makeup of the project team. 

Summary of the Advanced Fellowship Award application process**:

The key dates for applicants are provided below.

Competition launch: 17 October 2024

Submission deadline: 16:00 – 15 January 2025

Shortlisting panel: March 2025 (date tbc)

Interview board: May 2025 (date tbc)

**Please note: these dates may be subject to change

Important: It will be a condition of funding that all successful fellowships will be expected to start on 1 October 2025. You should ensure this is worked into your fellowship plan as extensions to start date will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

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Call documents

• Advanced Fellowship Guidance notes
• Advanced Fellowship finance guidance notes
• Advanced Fellowship budget and justification
• Example application form

The application form should be completed using the Health and Care Research Wales Faculty Awards Management System. Please note that authorised signatories will be required to confirm participation during the application process, therefore, sufficient time should be factored in for them to respond before the submission deadline.  

Contact us

If you have queries or problems preparing your proposal, please refer to the call guidance documents provided. You can also contact the team by email.

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Fellowship Awards surgeries

If you have any questions about the Doctoral or Advanced Fellowship Award, ask the team at one of the surgeries:

• Thursday 7 November 14:00 – 15:00 - SURGERY FULL
• Wednesday 20 November 14:00 – 15:00 SURGERY FULL
• Wednesday 27 November 14:00 – 15:00 - SURGERY FULL

To book your place at a surgery please complete the registration form

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Privacy notice

The Welsh Government grant privacy notice states how the Welsh Government will use the information provided at application stage.

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We are pleased to announce that from the 17 October 2024, the Health and Care Research Wales Faculty will be transitioning to using a new Awards Management System with the forthcoming Doctoral and Advanced Fellowship applicants to be the first group to use this new system.

From October 2024 onwards the Faculty will administer all new calls using the Awards Management System and will start to move the management of all existing Health and Care Research Wales personal awards into this system from January 2025.

We anticipate the new Awards Management System will facilitate more efficient Faculty processes which will benefit our applicants and members and help us in improving support for health and social care researchers in Wales. 

If you have any questions about the new system, contact the Faculty team who will be very happy to help.