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 Tuesday, 13 January 2026 at 16:00. 

Late applications will not be considered. 

Apply now using the Faculty Awards Management System 

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 across translational or clinical research and health and social care services or public health research in Wales.     

The Doctoral Fellowship offers funding for directly incurred salary costs (no overheads or indirect costs allowable as per 3 Doctoral Fellowship Finance Guidance) for three years’ full-time funding, or four, five, six 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 Welsh Higher Education Institutions or NHS or social care organisations in Wales wishing to undertake a PhD by research in any translational, clinical, health, social-care or public health related discipline to which will benefit the public, health service practice or policy, service users and carers or social care and support services in Wales. Proposals for PhD by Publication and Professional Doctorates are not in the remit of this scheme. 

Current WCAT trainees can apply for project costs only (as salary and PhD student fees are supported by the WCAT scheme). 

Projects that are undertaken under this scheme are expected to have likely potential for clinical and or practical application (if applying to the translational or clinical research panel) or benefit to the public, health service practice or policy, service users and carers or social care and support services in Wales (if applying to the health and social services or public health research panel). All projects should have clear relevance to Welsh Government policy priorities. 

Need and importance   

The Fellowship scheme offers funding opportunities across a broad range of translational or clinical and health services and social care-related or public health topics. 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 clinical, health services, public health, social care, wellbeing need that the research is addressing and provide 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 they are addressing
• the placing of the research proposed in the appropriate translational or clinical pathway or policy or practice context
• a description of how the research question was identified and developed and by whom
• details of how the public research partners such as patients, service users and or carers been involved in defining questions, design, outcomes and approach to knowledge transfer
• demonstration that the methods proposed are suitable for answering the research question
• an explanation of how equality, diversity and inclusion have been taken into consideration when formulating the research question, and how the project address or contribute to equality, diversity and inclusion issues 

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 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 maximum term of part-time awards should be proportionate to 3 years full time, with shorter terms also permitted.  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;
• unless otherwise indicated (e.g. through an advertised partnership between Health and Care Research Wales and another research funder) applicants must be entirely funded through the Doctoral Fellowship for the duration of the award for the WTE that they have applied for;
• applicants must have provided clear and comprehensive information and appropriate costings in all relevant sections of the application form including the training and development programme and public involvement and engagement plans;
• 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. This is usually no more than 20% of your full-time role. 

Assessment criteria 

Applications will be subject to examination to ensure fit with the scheme’s remit and eligibility conditions. 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 project, the applicant and their potential to develop their research career (the person) and the proposed host research environment (place) along with the training and development programme. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview with the Panel. 

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 translational and clinician experts, health and social care practitioners and academic reviewers and public, service users within the Panel and will seek expert review outside of the Panel as needed. Public members and service users will have a specific focus on reviewing the quality of public involvement in the application.  

The applicant will need to describe how they will communicate their results or report on expected findings in such a way that the research outcomes are open to critical examination by peers. Outputs 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 clinical; health and/or social care services are delivered. 

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 2026. 

Assessment process 

The assessment process is as follows:  

• all applications are initially reviewed to check they are within the programme and call remit (including policy relevance) and to identify any that are clearly not competitive*
• applications are prioritised by the Shortlisting Panel based on the assessment criteria for funding (Section 1.5)
• shortlisted applicants will be called for interview where they 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, or scale/duration. Please note that appropriate and high-quality public involvement is an expectation of all applications which will be considered in the eligibility checks.   

Summary of the Doctoral Fellowship Award application process**: 

The key dates for applicants are provided below. 

Competition launch: 25 September 2025 

Submission deadline: 16:00 hours – 13 January 2026 

Shortlisting panel: March 2026 (date tbc) 

Interview board: May 2026 (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 2026. You should ensure this is worked into your fellowship plan as extensions to start date will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.  

Call guidance 

• 1 - Doctoral and Advanced Fellowships Guidance Notes
• 2 - Doctoral and Advanced Fellowship Award Application Form
• 3 - Doctoral Fellowship Finance Guidance Notes 

Templates 

• 4 - Doctoral Fellowship budget and justification template

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.

Fellowship Award surgeries 

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

• Tuesday 30 September 12:30 – 13:30
• Friday 17 October 10:30 – 11:30
• Thursday 13 November 14:00 – 15:00 

Register here to book your place at a surgery 

Privacy notice

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

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.