The NIHR Oxford Senior Research Fellows Award scheme recognises and supports individuals with the potential and trajectory to become future leaders in translational research. This is a joint initiative between the Oxford BRC, the Oxford Health BRC and the ARC Oxford & Thames Valley (ARC OxTV) and aims to attract, recognise, and develop outstanding researchers.
NIHR Senior Research Fellows will be selected by an expert panel. The Fellows will receive an award of £5,000 a year for 2 years that may be used flexibly to facilitate their translational research programme and career development. They participate in a career development programme including two masterclasses a year, as well providing a short progress report annually. The NIHR Senior Research Fellowship programme is intended to support suitably experienced individuals to advance an independent research area which will enhance NIHR research in Oxford and strengthen future funding applications.
Some examples of how the funding may be used include:
- travel costs for research activities
- conference costs
- personal career development and leadership training
- consumables and minor items of equipment (not capital equipment)
- bridging funds to support research staff appointments whilst awaiting new research income
Eligibility
Applicants should be engaged in translational research which benefits patients or improves the healthcare system, brings health economics benefits, and contributes positively to society. Candidates from a wide range of disciplines are welcome to apply (for example from Medical Sciences, Computer Sciences, Maths Physical and Life Sciences, Engineering etc.). One fellowship will be awarded to an ARC OxTV researcher, two to Oxford Health BRC researchers and four to Oxford BRC researchers.
- Applicants must hold a PhD or MD and have 4 to 10 years’ postdoctoral experience;
- Employed by Oxford University, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford Health BRC or ARC OxTV;
- Professional achievement, in particular evidence of leadership, or leadership potential in translational research;
- High potential impact of the research on improvements in healthcare and public health;
- High quality and volume of excellent research (career breaks will be taken into account);
- Evidence of independence or starting to establish independence as a researcher including establishing collaborations and building research capacity;
- NIHR Senior Investigators, or those who have previously held NIHR Senior Investigators Awards, BRC Theme Leaders/co-leads, Heads of University Departments, OUH Divisional Directors, Associate Heads of OUH Divisions and BRC Steering Committee members are not eligible to apply.
Find out about our 2021 Senior Fellows
Case Studies
Here previous senior research fellowship recipients discuss what this support means to them.
David Eyre
Oxford BRC Senior Research Fellow
The funding from the fellowship has allowed two significant extensions to my work on clinical metagenomic sequencing this year. I’ve been able to take on a relatively high risk extension following on from a grant using direct-from-sample sequencing to diagnose gonorrhoea infection and antimicrobial resistance directly from urine samples – I’ve been able to develop a panel of RNA “baits” to capture gonorrhoea DNA from more complex samples, e.g. to see if the same diagnostic performance seen in urine samples can be achieved from throat and rectal swabs where the background bacteria present are more numerous. In addition to the direct application, this has allowed post-docs I’m working with to develop competence in a new technique that could be applied to other BRC projects. Also, I’ve been able to support the consumables costs for a DPhil student to extent his project trying to diagnose blood stream infection directly from positive blood cultures without the need for further sub-culture.
James Sheppard
Oxford BRC Senior Research Fellow
The primary activities I have been engaged with over the past year have included finishing off and writing up the OPTiMISE deprescribing trial which was subsequently published in JAMA and continuing my Wellcome Trust/Royal Society/NIHR School for primary care research funded STRATIFY programme developing prediction models for adverse events associated with antihypertensive treatment.
From a leadership perspective, I have continued to develop and build my research team through recruitment of 3 PhD students who join 3 post-doc researchers in my team. They will continue my programme of work, examining the risk of adverse events of statins, the risk of cardiovascular disease during flu infection and examining the benefits and harms of deprescribing of cardiovascular medications.
My Senior BRC fellowship funding enabled me to travel to Australia last July to meet with a number of colleagues with an interest in deprescribing to reduce polypharmacy. We are now collaborating on a programme grant application around deprescribing and another examining the efficacy of statin prescription in health older people.
Philippa Matthews
Oxford BRC Senior Research Fellow
Supported by this funding award from BRC, I have developed my role in collaborative projects to optimise the sequencing of influenza and other respiratory viruses as a diagnostic and research tool. Together with colleagues in Oxford and at Porton Down (Public Health England), we have optimised extraction from throat swabs, defined the limit of detection and whole genome assembly on both short-read illumina and long-read Oxford Nanopore sequencing platforms, improved whole genome sequencing run times, refined bioinformatic analysis, and assessed feasibility for early identification of transmission chains, vaccine efficacy and drug resistance. These projects demonstrate the potential impact of molecular diagnostics for improved clinical care, informing vaccine design, and contributing directly to infection prevention and control practice.
My BRC award has mainly been spent on laboratory consumables for the projects we have delivered to date but I hope to attend the European Society Conference in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) which has been rescheduled to later this year.
Tim Hinks
Oxford BRC Senior Research Fellow
This award has been extremely useful in facilitating both professional development and also delivery of additional components of my translational research.
I was able to attend the four-day EMBO Leadership for Laboratory Group Leaders course in Heidelberg 28-31st October 2019. This is the top management course in Europe for biomedical research scientists at my stage in my career and was highly tailored to my needs. It was excellent and is essential as I move from having a lab group of 2 employees last year to the 10 employees I will be supervising in October 2020, where strong leadership skills will be vital in determining the success of the group.
The BRC award has also allowed me to leverage two further awards. I was able to underwrite the uplift in salary required for appointing an MRC iCASE DTP Studentship. Secondly I was able to use this to partly underwrite preliminary work on a new UK-wide clinical trial: ATOMIC2. Ultimately this has led to successful applications for 4 further grants (2 from the BRC, 1 from University of Oxford and 1 from Pfizer).
The ability to have unrestricted flexible funds above my core funding has allowed me to leverage additional funds taking on an additional student, to undertake a major metagenomic study, been instrumental in the set-up of a clinical trial, and to be trained in the leadership for my group.