The goal of the Fellowship is for the appointee to publish papers and write a post-doctoral Fellowship or NIHR grant application to secure future funding. This will provide a platform to develop as an independent researcher and become a future leader in primary care research.

Suitable applicants include early promising career researchers who are within 5 years of completing their PhD and who now seek to gain their first research grant or a post-doctoral fellowship. We will consider applications from candidates who will have submitted their PhD by 1st March 2015 and can provide a letter of support from their supervisor(s) that they are likely to be awarded their PhD with no more than minor corrections at viva.

The Launching Fellowship must commence by the end of March 2015. The Fellowship is a collaborative venture between Avon Primary Care Research Collaborative (APCRC) – hosted at NHS Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group - and the Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) within the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol. The successful candidate will be employed by and based at the University of Bristol.

The Fellowship is open to all disciplines relevant to primary care research, including clinical and non-clinical disciplines. Applicants must have a track record in conducting research of relevance to primary health care and in generating important research questions affecting primary health care. We wish to attract applicants who have experience of undertaking primary care research that leads to high quality peer-reviewed publications, have completed (or are very close to completing) a PhD in an area of relevance to primary health care, and demonstrate the capacity to generate research questions and designs appropriate for primary care. The applicant’s proposed work during the Fellowship must relate to one of the research themes of the Centre for Academic Primary Care.

During the Launching Fellowship, the appointee will be expected to undertake activities such as writing up publications and working on one or more research studies within the Centre for Academic Primary Care, to prepare the way for a larger externally funded grant or successful post-doctoral fellowship application. The Fellowship holder will be expected to begin to build their own research portfolio as principal or co-principal investigator. Applicants will need to demonstrate outstanding potential to obtain an externally funded research grant or fellowship within 18 months of taking up the fellowship. This might be evidenced, for example, by a good publication record (taking into account stage of career) and successful prior involvement in grant applications.

Although we seek to appoint someone with the drive and ambition to ultimately lead their own research programme, it is also important that the successful applicant contributes to the intellectual life of the Academic Centre and the School, and to a co-operative, collaborative and productive working environment.