Research Fellowships: Key Details
- For any Trust staff who'd like to pursue an academic research career
- Up to £85,000 to cover your salary and research costs
- Applications are open once a year
The application window for the 2025/26 Research Fellowship programme has now closed. The 2026/27 programme will launch later this year.
Are you interested in developing your research skills? Or maybe thinking about pursuing a career in academic research?
Through our Research Fellowship programme, we provide funding to help you move forward in your academic research career. Our fellowships give you the time and resources to develop your research skills and undertake your own research project.
Applications for the next year’s programme will open on 1 October 2025. You can access our online grants system, Flexigrant, to work on and submit your application.
You’ll find more information to help you with your application form below. If you have any questions or would like to speak to us about your application, please email Philip Howard, Grants Manager at philip.howard@imperialcharity.org.uk to request a 20 minute meeting via Teams. Please provide an outline or summary of your query in your email. Please make sure you’ve read the Guidance Notes before you email.
A fellowship means you can take time out of your substantive job role or training programme to complete a research project and develop your research skills.
Our fellowships are for you to collect sufficient pilot data to make you a strong PhD candidate, or for you to undertake further research and develop a proposal for an NIHR-supported clinical lecturer/senior lecturer post or similar award.
Our fellowships provide the funding for your salary and related research expenses. Your substantive position will need to be back-filled, or if you’re a doctor, you’ll need to arrange to be out-of-programme.
We offer two types of fellowship:
- Pre-Doctoral Research Fellowships
These fellowships are for people who haven’t completed a PhD. You can apply if you’re a medic or healthcare professional outside of medicine (for example, a nurse, midwife, allied health professional, pharmacist, research practitioner, psychologist or health scientist).
- Post-Doctoral Research Fellowships
These fellowships are for people who have completed a PhD in the past five years.
For both fellowships, you need to be a UK resident and have the legal right to work in the UK.
Please read the detailed criteria and eligibility section in our Guidance Notes that you can download before you apply.
We know that working arrangements can be complicated, so we can assess your eligibility on a case-by-case basis. If you have any queries, please contact us at grants@imperialcharity.org.uk.
You can apply for up to £85,000 to cover your salary and relevant research expenses.
Our Guidance Notes provide further detail about costs that you can/cannot include.
If your current salary exceeds the maximum threshold, please contact us at grants@imperialcharity.org.uk.
This depends if you’re doing a pre-doctoral or a post-doctoral fellowship. You can read our Guidance Notes for further information.
We’re committed to supporting pioneering research as well as the training and development of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust staff. You’ll be asked to identify an important research question that will have an impact on patient care at ICHT, its surrounding communities and the wider NHS.
We’re looking for applicants who will be able to use the academic research skills they will develop, as well as data produced in their research project, to springboard into further study or academic research career.
You can read our Guidance Notes for more information about our assessment criteria.
To find out more about the fellows and projects we've previously supported, click here.
Your application needs the support of a supervisor(s) with relevant academic research and professional background, as well as your line manager and your Divisional Research Manager. This ensures that you have the support to make your proposal competitive, and to ensure your current role is back-filled (or if you're a medic, that your out-of-programme request can be arranged).
Please complete the application form on our online grants portal Flexigrant. You'll need to register for a Flexigrant account if you don’t have one already.
Please make sure you use your ICHT contact details and nhs.net email when you register. Then, when you log in, you can submit a new application under the ‘My applications’ tab on the left-hand side.
Applications open once a year.
- Applications open on Flexigrant on Wednesday 1 October 2025
- Application deadline is 12pm on Thursday 5 February 2026
- We will inform you of the outcome of your application by mid-June 2026.
We have created lots of resources to help you with your application.
- Click here to see the Pre-Doc Fellowship Guidance Notes
- Click here to see the Pre-Doc Fellowship Sample Application Form
- Click here to see the Post-Doc Fellowship Guidance Notes
- Click here to see the Post-Doc Fellowship Sample Application Form
You must discuss your application with your relevant Divisional Research Manager before applying:
- Medicine and Integrated Care: Scott Mullaney scott.mullaney@nhs.net
- Surgery, Cancer and Cardiovascular: Donna Copeland donna.copeland@nhs.net
- Women’s, cardiac, clinical support, sexual health: Ella Johnson ella.johnson@nhs.net
The Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO) runs an annual series of events to support applicants for research funding, including ‘Preparing for a pre-doctoral application’ and ‘Academic opportunities for doctors’. Find out more here.
When planning to cost your fellowship, please make sure you read the Guidance Notes carefully. You cannot start your fellowship until after the Welcome event, usually held in July, and after you have back-filled your substantive post at ICHT or if you’re a doctor, you have secured your out-of-programme arrangements.
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust or Imperial College London will pay your salary - and any other approved costs - upfront. They will then invoice us quarterly and we will repay them.
You can find out more about how some of our previous research fellows benefited from the programme by clicking on the links below.
Quick links
Use these links to download our sample application forms and complete guidance notes:
Top tip
Your application needs to be signed by your line manager and your Divisional Research Manager. You also need a letter of support from your supervisor(s). It can take time to secure these - make sure you factor this in when you’re planning your application so you’re not caught out.
Quick link
Click here to access the online application form