The NIHR Development and Skills Enhancement (DSE) Award is a postdoctoral-level funding opportunity. If you are an early to mid-career researcher, it can support you to gain specific skills and experience to underpin the next phase of your research career.
A DSE Award must help you to develop the relevant and required skills to make a competitive NIHR personal award or NIHR research grant application. Applications to develop skills that are suited to research outside our remit are not in scope for a DSE award.
What funding is available through a DSE Award?
A DSE Award provides funding for:
- the salary of you, as the lead applicant, for up to 2 years
- training and development costs, including any related travel and subsistence, up to £5,000 per year FTE
- conference costs up to £1,000 per year FTE
- mentorship costs up to £3,000
These are the only costs that we will fund through a DSE Award.
You can use mentorship costs to facilitate the time that you spend with mentors or supervisors. It may cover various expenses related to mentorship such as travel expenses, meeting costs, mentor fees and professional development events.
Although you can use a DSE Award to fund development and leadership skills within a clinical setting, we will not support practice time. Visit our DSE Award page for more information on practice time.
How much can you apply for?
You will be able to choose a 12, 18 or 24-month duration. The limits on what you can apply for are regardless of extensions in duration due to a lower FTE percentage.
The limits are:
- 12 months FTE duration
- £5,000 training costs
- £1,000 for conference or meeting costs
- up to £3,000 towards mentorship costs
- 18 months FTE duration
- £7,500 training costs
- £1,500 for conference or meeting costs
- up to £3,000 towards mentorship costs
- 24 months FTE duration
- £10,000 training costs
- £2,000 for conference or meeting costs
- up to £3,000 towards mentorship costs
DSE Award costs will be funded at 100% and full economic costings (FEC) are not covered. Visit our finance guidance for more information.
Eligibility
Visit the ‘Who can apply?’ section on the DSE award page for full eligibility information.
To apply, you must:
- have completed any relevant pre-registration training, if you are applying as a clinical academic
- have a proposed English contracting organisation that is an HEI, NHS body, or other provider of health and/or care services
- if you are applying to the Addictions Healthcare Goals Programme partnership award, you must have an equivalent UK-wide contracting organisation in the devolved nations
- hold a relevant PhD or MD, or have submitted your thesis for examination at the time of application; you must have been awarded your PhD or MD by the time you start the award
- have not submitted a DSE application in the previous submission window
This award does not fund research or large portions of time to develop funding applications. The activity that you undertake as part of the award should be focused on your personal career development. You must not propose time to undertake research or large portions of time to develop funding applications.
You must not apply if you submitted a DSE Award application to the most recent previous cohort, which closed in July 2026.
Submitting multiple applications
You must have only 1 application for an NIHR Academy personal career development award under consideration at a time. Find more information in the ‘Application and award restrictions’ section of our application guidance.
Duration
You can hold a DSE award FTE for:
- 12 months
- 18 months
- 24 months*
You can undertake a DSE Award on a part-time basis of between 50% and 100% FTE.
You should take into account your FTE rate when setting your award duration. For example, if the full-time duration for an award is 12 months and you will work at 50% FTE, your award duration would be 24 months. Visit our personal award durations page for more information
Applications proposing a FTE duration that is less than 12 months or more than 24 months will not be accepted.
*Requesting a 24-month duration
A 24-month FTE duration is only available to those from a nurse, midwife, AHP, healthcare scientist, pharmacist or social care background. Contact us before starting your application if you are from another professional background but feel there are exceptional circumstances for a 24-month duration.
Partnership awards
Partnership awards are funding opportunities offered jointly by the NIHR and partners from the charity and industry sectors.
Visit funding web page
(https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/development-and-skills-enhancement-dse-award-cohort-11/2026485)
