Post-doctoral awards are designed to bridge the gap between a doctorate and applying for a clinical lectureship or equivalent. Funding covers salary and publication costs and can be for 3 months full-time or up to 6 months part-time.
The Oxford BRC Post-Doctoral Awards scheme offers up to £25,000 to enable early career researchers to write up research from their doctorates and apply for further funding. All applicants should have recently completed a PhD or DPhil, and priority will be given to nurses, midwives and allied health professionals who are preparing to apply for a post-doctoral position.
Career stage: Post-doctoral research within one year of completing a doctorate
Where: Oxford University or Oxford University Hospitals Trust in one of the Oxford BRC themes
Level of funding: up to £25,000
Duration of funding: flexible, 3–6 months
What we offer
The grant should be used mainly to claim salary costs for yourself, full- or part-time, and the amount should cover a minimum of 25% of your salary. You can also use the funding for publication costs where this is not provided by your theme.
You cannot use the funding for:
• training
• consumables
• conference registration
• travel
• subsistence
• other staff costs
• indirect costs
• overheads
Eligibility and suitability
You must have submitted your PhD/DPhil before any award is made and you must be associated with one of the Oxford BRC themes (Oxford Health BRC researchers would not be eligible).
You can’t apply if you want to:
• conduct a pilot study
• develop a health intervention
• organise a one-off event
• write up a book
• do an academic course, such as a Master’s degree or PhD
• engage with a non-specialist public audience
Conditions associated with the award
The aim of the funding is to give you time to generate publications from your doctoral research to support your transition to a post-doctoral position. You will be expected to remain in touch with the BRC Training and Education Manager during the funding period (karen.bell@medsci.ox.ac.uk). Any resulting publications must give credit to the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. You will be expected to submit a report at the end of the funding period.
Case Study
Here a previous Post-Doctoral Award recipient outlines how the award was used.
Tulika Nandi
Post-doctoral Research Assistant, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
My research focuses on non-invasive brain stimulation techniques which are used for probing neurophysiology and have the potential to complement conventional neurorehabilitation. I am particularly interested in the significance and sources of individual differences in responses to brain stimulation.
Transcranial direct current stimulation is an extensively researched and relatively inexpensive technique, but translation to clinical applications is limited by individual variability in responses. Several studies from our lab and our collaborators have examined the effects of direct current stimulation on concentrations of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. While there is a general trend for stimulation induced decrease in GABA, there are also significant differences between participants. The aim of this project is to run retrospective current modelling in a large number of participants (from multiple datasets) in order to determine whether stimulation induced GABA changes are correlated with current amplitudes in the motor cortex. The BRC award gave me the opportunity kick start this analysis with dedicated time commitment and computational resources.