Research training opportunities for clinicians

9 October 2009.

Across the UK, the Wellcome Trust’s Research Training Programmes for Clinicians are inviting applications from appropriately qualified individuals with aspirations to pursue a career in academic medicine.

The Trust’s Research Training Programmes for Clinicians are flagship schemes that support the most promising medically qualified clinicians to undertake rigorous research training. This training will give candidates the potential to pursue careers as academic clinicians.

Firstly, seven PhD programmes for clinicians - at Cambridge, Dundee, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London (Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) and Oxford - provide research opportunities that will appeal to clinicians from across the range of specialities.

The programmes at Liverpool and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine focus on international health and candidates will be expected to do their research in a low- or middle-income country.

Providing a unique opportunity for translational medicine training in the UK, the Trust’s Interdisciplinary Training Programmes for Clinicians in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics are based at Cambridge, Imperial College London, Newcastle and a Scottish consortium (led by Edinburgh with Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow).

These programmes have been developed around a unique partnership between academic and industrial partners; support has been provided by GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth Research, Roche, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and PTC Therapeutics.

Lastly, two Joint PhD programmes for clinicians and basic scientists have been established, at the University of Birmingham and The Institute of Cancer Research, London. Each programme will provide the individual trainee with unique opportunities to sample high quality basic and clinical research environments, and to develop a research proposal that is tailored to their individual interests.