The Wellcome Trust has always considered among its highest priorities the development and support of outstanding individual scientists through training programmes and established career fellowships. We have continued to innovate, evolve and develop our personal support schemes in response to feedback from the scientists that we support. We have recently undertaken a review of these schemes and, as a result, we are introducing several new programmes of support.

We have long recognised the crucial importance of the PhD in providing initial postgraduate research training. Good PhD training provides not only practical skills, but also an excellent grounding in the intellectual basis of the scientific research endeavour and the ability to formulate important research questions.

We have taken a lead in the UK by supporting 14 thematic Four-year PhD Studentship Programmes, for which places have been in huge demand. In these programmes, the first-year students get involved in a series of research projects and/or participate in taught courses, with the aim of increasing their technical research skills, broadening their understanding of different areas of science, and getting a flavour of different laboratories. Students can then make a more informed choice about their PhD research project.

In this model, the student plays a key role in choosing the supervisor, rather than the other way round, which is empowering to the students and challenging to supervisors. Following the success of these programmes, we are launching a new competition for Four-year PhD Programmes. These will be reviewed alongside and in competition with renewal applications from existing programmes.

To complement these activities, and to help to develop research capacity in experimental medicine, we are also inviting applications for PhD Programmes for Clinicians. This new scheme will run alongside the existing clinical fellowship programmes, providing an additional route for clinicians wanting a research career and making it easier for these individuals to identify first-class supervisors and mentors.

We are introducing two further schemes that will provide important opportunities for scientific career development. For the most promising newly qualified postdoctoral researchers, we have established the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships. These four-year awards will provide unprecedented freedom for those beginning their postdoctoral careers to gain experience in the best research laboratories around the world. This will enable them to tackle important biomedical research questions during their first few years of developing scientific independence.

Opportunities for researchers to collaborate, learn new skills and obtain experience in other disciplines are crucial to the research process. Our new Flexible Travel Awards will help to facilitate this at all stages of career development. They will offer the opportunity to develop new collaborations and new approaches to help solve important research questions.

These schemes are likely to be extremely popular and highly competitive. They continue our tradition of fostering research by supporting the brightest and best scientists throughout their careers.