To all nurses, midwives and allied health professionals:

• Have you  ever wanted to undertake research as part of your clinical career?

• Have you ever thought of doing a PhD? 

Then read on...

About the PCAF scheme

The NIHR launches the Pre-doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (PCAF) scheme annually, as part of the Integrated Clinical Academic (ICA) pathway for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals wishing to pursue a clinical academic career.

The HEE/NIHR ICA Pre-doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (PCAF) scheme supports early career researchers from the ICA Eligible Professions, who are committed to a clinical academic career, to become competitive applicants for a peer-reviewed doctoral level research training fellowship.

The PCAF scheme offers salaried time to prepare an application for a competitive, peer reviewed doctoral level research training fellowship and funding for personalised programmes of academic training that equip awardees with the skills and experience to access doctoral level funding. 

For more information about the scheme, such as launch date, award uptake options and scope of funding, please click here.

In the funding panel Chair’s report, he wrote:

"At the end of a PCAF award, applicants should be in a position to submit a competitive Doctoral Fellowship application. Applicants are advised to develop their PCAF training proposal with this in mind, identifying any areas of weakness that need to be addressed over the course of the award."

What we offer

UHS is keen to support people thinking of applying for this scheme. To help people get ahead of the game, SoAR is running a PCAF workshop to assist with preparation of applications for the scheme.

The workshop will give you an opportunity to hear from a number of experts such as:

• one of last year’s funding panel

• a successful PCAF applicant

• a member of the Research Design Service

Workshops are planned to run every November.

For more information, please sign up to receive emails from SoAR, including event dates and other funding opportunities.