PhD Studentships (Wellcome Consortium) for Primary Care Clinicians

Location: Studentships are hosted at one of the 10 primary care research departments who are part of this Wellcome consortium: Bristol, Cambridge, Exeter, Keele, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, QMUL, Southampton and UCL

Funding for: Clinicians of all disciplines working in UK NHS primary care, for example: practice nurses; health visitors; dentists, primary care pharmacists; optometrists working in primary care and general practitioners (NB this list is not exhaustive). Eligible clinicians will be on a list or register of recognised active clinicians held by their professional body.

Funding amount: Please see advertisement

Start date: October 2025

Award Duration: Three years

Number of awards: Up to five

Information Webinar: Monday 23^rd September 14:00 – 15:00

Closes: 23:59 Thursday 12th December 2024

Shortlisting: March 2025

Interviews: Week commencing 17th March 2025, in person, London

Overview

Applications for the 2025 PhD for Primary Care Clinicians programme are welcomed from clinicians of all disciplines working in UK primary care, for example: practice nurses; health visitors; dentists, primary care pharmacists; optometrists working in primary care and general practitioners (NB this list is not exhaustive).  

There are various PhD projects available across consortium members, as well as the opportunity to propose your own research project. Students are strongly advised to discuss their proposed studies with their proposed supervisors and must have agreement from their proposed primary supervisor upon submission of their application.

What funding is available?

• Three years of current full-time salary (pro rata if part time), please note for general practitioners and dentist’s salaries are capped at the BMA Pre-2003 Consultant salary rate (£77,769 – £100,810 FTE) -Pay scales for consultants in England (bma.org.uk) 
• Training expenses (circa £10k pa) (to include tuition fees, training costs and conference attendance etc)
• Up to £25K in research costs across the duration of doctorate
• Institutional overheads and supervisory costs are not included in awards

Eligibility criteria

Candidates must be fully qualified in their area of practice and will be working largely or wholly in primary care (i.e. not in secondary care). Candidates should intend to continue their clinical careers in primary care.

Those who are still undergoing training in their area of practice in primary care, e.g. training as a GP or training as a practice nurse, are not eligible until they have completed their training. Candidates who will definitely have completed their training by the time their doctorate is due to start are eligible, except where completion of training involves an exit examination. Such candidates must not apply until they have passed their exit exam and thereby completed their training.

Candidates who are enrolled on a Masters or other higher degree must have completed this before enrolling on their PhD, it is not possible to be enrolled on two higher degrees simultaneously on this programme. Candidates are not permitted to have another paid award during their PhD (such as a fellowship or seed corn/bridging award).

The remit of this scheme is to fund first time PhD studies for primary care clinicians and funding secondary doctorates is out of remit unless there are exceptional extenuating circumstances.

Please note: this programme isn't meant for individuals who have already secured MPhil funding and want to use this programme for the additional two years of doctoral funding, nor can it be used for people who have already registered for a PhD (funded or unfunded).

For more information on the programme, in the first instance, please refer to: PhD Programme for Primary Care Clinicians — NIHR School for Primary Care Research

How to apply: You must apply through the NIHR School for Primary Care Research portal via the ‘Apply’ button above.

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