Changes to the NIHR Fellowship Schemes

NIHR Fellowships opportunities are being streamlined from January 2025.

The current fellowship award programmes are being grouped into Pre-doctoral, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral. The fellowships at each level will be accessed through the NIHR Awards Management System 

Behind the scenes, the NIHR Academy will review each application and place it into an appropriate committee. By maintaining several background-specific funding committees for each new award level, review will be able to better consider and understand professional context, setting and area of research interest. 

The Predoctoral Award will be reviewed by four committees:

• Methodology Committee
• Primary Care Committee
• Health and Care Professionals Committee
• Local Authority, Social Care and Public Health Committee

The Doctoral Award will be reviewed by three committees:

• Doctoral Committee
• Health and Care Professionals Committee
• Local Authority, Social Care and Public Health Committee

The Postdoctoral Award will be reviewed by three committees:

• Postdoctoral Committee
• Health and Care Professionals Committee
• Local Authority, Social Care and Public Health Committee

Time Lines

The first award to launch will be the Predoctoral Award in January 2025, running once each year. All Doctoral and Postdoctoral awards will run twice each year.

Award	Application window
Predoctoral Award	29 January 2025 - 20 March 2025
Postdoctoral Award	26 March 2025 - 21 May 2025
Doctoral Award	9 April 2025 - 10 June 2025

 

Several NIHR Academy schemes remain unaffected by these changes, include the Development and Skills Enhancement Award (DSE), Pre-Application Support Fund and Research Professorships.

All NIHR Fellowship programmes, at each career level, can be found on the NIHR website.

NIHR RSS Leicester and Partners have a Fellowship team with expertise in all NIHR Fellowship awards, we look forward to supporting you in the future (support request).