Health and Care Research Wales Doctoral Fellowship award

Health and Care Research Wales is pleased to announce a new call for applications to the Doctoral 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 Doctoral Fellowship Award aims to support talented individuals to undertake research leading to the completion of a PhD and to support capacity building in health or social care research in Wales.    

The Fellowship offers funding for directly incurred salary costs (no overheads or indirect costs allowable) for 3 years full-time funding, or 4- or 5-years part-time funding, PhD tuition fees, and the costs of an appropriate research project and training and development programme.  

Applications are invited from pre-doctoral researchers employed within Higher Education Institutes or staff employed by NHS or social care organisations in Wales wishing to undertake a PhD in a health or social care topic. Proposals for PhD by Publication are not eligible for this fellowship.  

Projects that are undertaken under this scheme are expected to have public and patient and/or service user benefit as well as clear relevance to Welsh Government policy priorities.

Need and importance   

The 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 based at a host institution in Wales at the time the Fellowship starts)
• applicants will need to be able to undertake their PhD on a full-time basis over 3 years (100% Whole Time Equivalent (WTE)), or part-time over 4 years (75% WTE) or 5 years (60% WTE). The cost of the whole award will not exceed £300,000
• applicants must be supported by a named PhD supervisor
• 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
• where already registered for a PhD (or MPhil with transfer to PhD), applicants should not have been registered for more than 12 months at 100% WTE by the time the award starts
• applicants must be entirely funded for the duration of the award through the Doctoral Fellowship
• 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 

Assessment Criteria

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. Applicants not progressing beyond this initial triage will be informed in writing at this stage.      

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. 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
• 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 Doctoral Fellowship Award application process**:

The key dates for applicants are provided below.

Competition launch: 17 October 2024

Submission deadline: 16:00 hours – 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 the 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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Apply now using the Faculty Awards Management System

Call documents

• Guidance notes for applicants (pdf)
• Fellowships finance guidance notes (pdf)
• Detailed budget spreadsheet (xlsx)
• Example application form (pdf)

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 Award 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.