The Clinical Primer Scheme is currently closed.

 

Nationally and within UCD, there is an urgent need for more medical scientists to enable research translation. This deficiency is even more acute in veterinary medicine, for which UCD has the only School on the island of Ireland. The Wellcome ISSF Clinical Primer Scheme within UCD will incentivise and support early careers of medical and veterinary clinicians, practitioners, and individuals within the allied health services e.g. dentists, nurses, physiotherapists etc.  The Scheme is ultimately aimed at unlocking a new clinical talent pool which will be essential for underpinning the University’s future success in the priority areas of Personalised & Translational Medicine and One Health. Fostering collaboration between interdisciplinary stakeholders is key to addressing complex scientific, regulatory, societal and economic challenges related to animal and human health. Therefore, a major emphasis within the Clinical Primer Scheme 2021, will be collaboration between the medical, veterinary medical, and social sciences and humanities community.

The purpose of the Clinical Primer Scheme is to allow successful candidates an opportunity to work in a research environment, generating significant research outcomes that can be leveraged to pursue extramural funding. Thus, only candidates whose research clearly has the potential to provide a launch pad for larger-scale continuation projects, either by the incoming researcher or the wider host laboratory/team, will be considered.

This scheme will operate as a competitive funding programme intended to facilitate career development and growth, with mentorship and staff development being key features of the programme. Up to three fellows will be funded in this round, with funding of €46,600 per award being made available for up to 12 months to support clinical buyout time and associated research costs.

 

Award features include:

• Successful candidates will undertake an interdisciplinary research project of up to 12 months duration supervised by a pre-identified mentor.
• Dedicated project management and grant writing support will be available to all fellows, linking in with the project management team within the ISSF Network of Excellence Scheme. This support will enable fellows to bid for future external funding and generate high impact outputs.
• Successful candidates will be trained to disseminate their research in multiple formats and media achieved through programmes and workshops on advanced communications skills. This will be complemented by support from communications staff in the UCD Research Institutes.
• Successful candidates will participate in established weekly seminar series which currently operate across the UCD Research Institutes which gives students, research staff and invited guests an opportunity to meet each other, learn about current research and have topical discussions. This is an excellent forum for emerging investigators to present their original research findings to their peers and to get feedback on their research progress.
• Recipients will present their research at the UCD Conway Festival of Research and Innovation, a two-day festival showcasing the research achievements of early career researchers that features oral and poster presentations in addition to plenary lectures by eminent international biomedical researchers.
• Where possible, successful candidates will have access to career development opportunities available within the University.