NIHR GOSH BRC Research Hospital Internship for Wider Health Care Professionals

CALL CLOSED: The NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre Research Hospital Internships aim to support nurses, allied health professionals, clinical scientists, and other associate clinical non-medical professionals to develop a research proposal and apply for a pre-doctoral or doctoral fellowships.

The scheme has an exemplary track record of supporting individuals through fellowship applications for a range of awards including NIHR pre-doctoral and PhD fellowships.

Funding is provided by the GOSH BRC as part of the Career Development Academy and GOSH Children’s Charity. Support will be organised by the Research Hospitals Clinical Academic Careers Lead, with support provided by Outcomes and Experience Research in Children’s Health (ORCHID) and wider BRC clinical academics. ORCHIDs clinical academic faculty is focused on research capacity building through providing structured support to nurses, allied health professionals, clinical scientists and any other associate clinical, non-medical professional across the Trust in line with the GOSH Research Hospital Strategy.

Proposals should address one of the two aims which will determine the most appropriate source of funding:

1. Awards supported by the BRC will align with the broad remit of the BRC, which is to support translational research for children and young people.
2. Awards supported by GOSH Charity will not necessarily have a translational focus but will address ambitions set out in GOSH’s wider research hospital strategy and have an impact on the care and treatment provided to patients at GOSH. Audit and service evaluation projects are not eligible.

We welcome enquiries from applicants at all stages of research expertise and training. Therefore, your research plan can be in the very early stages with identification of a need for future study, through to a developed research proposal, planned methods, supervision team and collaborators. Dependent on applications, we aim to award internships for pre-PhD and PhD career stages.

The expected outputs of all these internships are the submission of a fellowship application, and therefore applicants must be committed to doing so, demonstrated from their application and interview.

The internship provides:

• Up to six months of funded time on current salary to allow an individual to spend a day a week of protected time to work up a research idea ready for fellowship application within the following six months.
• Bespoke support and training led by the clinical academic careers, including monthly seminar series from the GOSH BRC Junior Faculty Bitesize Educational Seminar Series and ORCHID.
• Regular face-to-face/virtual sessions during fellowships on key aspects of successful applications, which the applicant will be expected to attend and engage with.
• Peer support from fellow interns and over 20 clinical academics from a wide range of health care professions working at GOSH.
• Use of hospital software packages such as, R statistics, NVIVO, online databases, quiet space, book library and other resources.
• Review of fellowship applications from senior researchers.
• Interview practice with a large, varied panel.
• Up to £500 of funding to conduct patient and public involvement and engagement activities necessary to enhance the external fellowship application.

• You must be a nurse, allied health professional, healthcare scientist, pharmacist or any other associate clinical non-medical professional.
• You must be able to start the internship on the 28 October 2024.
• You need to have a substantive contract with GOSH, ICH or our partner hospitals (Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital or Sheffield Children’s Hospital) or a minimum of a further 12 months contract remaining with UCL GOS ICH, GOSH or our partner hospitals (Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital or Sheffield Children’s Hospital) from internship commencement and must be planning to have your current employer (either GOSH, UCL GOS ICH, Sheffield, Birmingham or Alder Hey Children’s Hospitals) as your host NHS Trust on your fellowship application.
• Written agreement from your line manager to support backfill of 0.2 WTE for up to six months, (assessed by signature on application form and confirmed by a member of the BRC Research Hospital Internships team with follow-up correspondence to ensure full support for applicant, during internship and at/after fellowship submission).
• Staff who are currently part time and propose increasing their hours by 0.2 WTE to undertake the internship will also require agreement from their line manager (signature on application form).
• Support from line manager and departmental head to support your fellowship or funding application going forward, (assessed by signatures on application form and follow-up correspondence).
• Your proposed area of research must be aligned with the remit of the BRC and/or GOSH’s Research Hospital strategy.

An open event to discuss the internship programme and answer any questions will be held virtually on Tuesday 11 June at 12pm, if you would like to join event, please contact Graeme O'Connor below to confirm. The session will be recorded. You can join via MS Teams: Join the meeting now

Another drop in question and answer session will be held virtually on Thursday 27 June at 4pm. You can join via MS Teams: Join the meeting now

1. If you'd like to apply, please read through the Guidance Notes and Application Form.
2. The deadline to apply is Monday 05 August 2024. Applicants must send a completed application form (as a word document) and a copy of their CV to brc@gosh.nhs.uk.
3. Please contact Graeme O'Connor (graeme.o'connor@gosh.nhs.uk) if you have any questions about the scheme.