NIHR Doctoral Award

The NIHR Doctoral Award is a 3-year funding opportunity designed to support the career development of all health and social care professionals through PhD research.

This award replaces the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship, NIHR Doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship, and NIHR Doctoral Local Authority Fellowship. It merges the former fellowships into a single, streamlined scheme to enhance accessibility and simplify the application process.

The award supports research in any scientific discipline or sector that contributes to improving health, including public health and social care, within the NIHR’s funding remit.

Clinical or practice time:

If you are a clinician or a practitioner, or a local authority applicant, you can apply for up to 20% clinical or practice time as part of your award.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the Doctoral Award, you must:

• hold a 1st class or 2:1 bachelor’s degree or equivalent. If you do not meet this requirement, you must normally have a master’s degree
• your proposed host organisation must be a recognised Higher Education Institution (HEI), NHS body, local authority, social care organisation, or another provider of health or care services in England
• you should have some prior research experience or research training
• if you are already registered for a PhD (or MPhil with transfer to PhD), you must not have been registered for more than 12 months full-time (100% WTE) by the time the award starts
• your proposed research must be within the NIHR remit

Further details on eligibility can be found on the Doctoral Award page.

What is available through a Doctoral Award?

The Doctoral Award provides comprehensive funding to support you in undertaking a PhD by research. Funding covers:

• the full salary of the award holder for the entire duration of the fellowship at the requested WTE
• costs for the approved research project
• associated conference fees
• costs for a suitable training and development plan which will lead to further professional development including overseas placement.
• working with people and communities costs

There is no set limit on the total budget you can request, as long as your costs are fully justified to support your research  and can demonstrate value for money.

However, some costs have specific caps:

• conference attendance – capped at £3,000 for the entire award duration
• computer – capped at £1,000
• PhD fees – must be costed at the UK Home Fees rate

If your application is successful, we will review your budget in line with the funding committee’s recommendations and conditions to ensure value for money and alignment with NIHR requirements.

Full details of costs for this scheme are available via the Doctoral Award page. Guidance about how to cost your application is available in our finance guidance.

Themed calls and highlight notices

NIHR themed calls are funding opportunities focusing on a particular priority research area. Highlight notices call attention to areas of ongoing health research priorities for NIHR. Full details on both are available on our themed calls webpage.

We are particularly interested in receiving applications that will develop skills and experience within our strategic themes:

• social care
• mental health
• public health
• health data science
• researchers working in a Local Authority setting
• applicants hosted by post-92 HEIs and non University Hospital practice settings

Applications received under these strategic themes will still have to meet the same quality threshold required for funding but will be given priority if the number of fundable applications exceeds the maximum that can be funded.

Partnership awards

Partnership awards are funding opportunities offered jointly by the NIHR and our charity partners. Charities offering a partnership award for the Doctoral Award cohort 1 are: