^{_{Juliet Albert, pictured here with her colleague Suhad Adam, is a midwife and a previous recipient of an NIHR Pre-Doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (PCAF).}} 

What is a research fellowship?

A fellowship is a funding award that allows you to take time out of your substantive role or training programme to develop research skills and work on research projects.

Depending on your funder, you may have:

• Protected time for doing research and/or developing research skills.
• Your salary costs covered, so that you can keep being paid and your substantive role can be back-filled.
• Time to undertake research training courses, with some fellowships providing funding.

Unlike grants, fellowships are personal funding awards, designed to help an individual to develop, and are as much about the applicant, the training programme and the host institution as they are about the research itself.

What are the different levels of fellowship?

Fellowships are generally offered at three different levels:

• Pre-doctoral (i.e. before you have a PhD) – Pre-doctoral fellowships are an early ‘step’ on the fellowship pathway and they aim to create a strong foundation from which to build an academic or clinical academic career. The purpose of most pre-doctoral fellowships is to equip awardees with the skills and experience to access doctoral-level funding.
• Doctoral (i.e. gaining a PhD) - Doctoral fellowship schemes provide funding to undertake a PhD by research. Some Doctoral fellowships also allow the awardee to undertake further professional development specifically related to the clinical part of their role.
• Post-doctoral (i.e. once you have a PhD) – These more senior fellowships are for researchers who already have PhDs. They provide funding for clinical academic career development - to support the transition towards becoming a fully independent researcher.

Where can I look for funding?

There are several organisations that fund research fellowships for NMAHPPs. When deciding who to apply for funding from, it is really important to think about which scheme is the best ‘fit’ for you. This might involve thinking about things like:

• What you want to do in your fellowship and what your aims are in the longer term.
• What topic you want to research.
• What the research priorities of the funder are.
• The timing/ application window of the funder.
• How much support is offered by the funder, both in terms of your development and experience but also in terms of the financial support they offer.
• What the eligibility criteria are for the fellowship and how these align with your experience/project.

The most common fellowship funders for AHSC NMAHPPs are:

What should I do if I want to apply for a fellowship?

If you are thinking about applying for research fellowship then the most important thing you should do is speak to your Trust research contact. They will have helped many people apply for fellowships before and will be a great source of support and guidance throughout your application.

Here are some other useful things you can do before applying:

• Attend CATO’s next ‘preparing for a pre-doctoral fellowship’ event (runs annually in October) or ‘preparing for a PhD’ event (runs annually in March). Email CATO for information.
• Watch some of these NIHR webinars:
• ‘Introduction to the Pre-doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (PCAF) scheme.
• ‘How to develop a competitive PCAF application’
• ‘Tips for applying for an NIHR Pre-doctoral Fellowship’
• Read ALL the guidance on offer from your chosen funder carefully and in detail.
• Talk to your manager about your plans and ensure your plans are highlighted at your appraisal.
• Look for a supervisor. If you don’t know where to find one, try speaking to your research lead about how to find a suitable supervisor for your plans.
• Reach out to your funder and see if they offer any drop-in/ pre-application chats where you can ask them questions about the process.
• Start as early as possible! Applications take lots of time, so it's important to start as early as you can. This includes getting support early from your mentor, supervisor, manager, finance, signatories, etc.