Course funding and employer information

Course funding

Bursaries

If you’re a health and care professional who meets the eligibility criteria, you can apply for a bursary to cover your fees for courses starting in the 2024/25 academic year.

What you can apply for

You can apply for one to three years of funding to complete the:

• Postgraduate Certificate
• Postgraduate Diploma
• Master’s Degree

starting in the academic year 2024/25.

You cannot defer funding to a future academic year.

You need to pass each stage to get the funding for the next stage. For example, you will need to pass the Postgraduate Certificate to receive funding to complete the Postgraduate Diploma.

You will not get funding for retaking any component of the course.

Eligibility criteria for bursary applications

To be eligible to apply for a bursary, you must:

1. be a regulated health and care professional

The adopted definition of health and care professionals are those regulated healthcare professionals, excluding doctors and dentists, who are currently registered with one of the national regulatory bodies:

• Nursing and Midwifery Council
• Health and Care Professions Council
• General Dental Council
• General Medical Council
• General Optical Council
• General Osteopathic Council
• General Chiropractic Council
• General Pharmaceutical Council
• Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland

2. have a course offer from one of the universities who provide courses aligned with the Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework

You should therefore apply for the course/s you wish to study before you apply for a bursary. If you are applying to more than one university, you will be asked to rank the universities to which you have applied in order of preference.

3. work in the NHS or a publicly funded healthcare setting in England

4. agree to share the information provided on the bursary application form with the universities delivering courses aligned with the Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework and anonymised details with the bursary selection panel

5. permit the NIHR to contact you about your experiences of the course and your ongoing career development for up to 5 years after you finish the course

6. have your employer’s support to undertake the course you are requesting a bursary for

How to apply

You can only submit one bursary application for the academic year 2024/25.

The form includes the following questions, each with a 250 maximum word limit. We recommend you draft answers to these questions before you complete the form.

1. Please explain briefly how completing this course will enhance your career/role in clinical research delivery.
2. To what extent is your clinical specialty identified as an area of clinical research skills shortages?
3. To what extent is your local area currently underservedby clinical research in your clinical specialty, and how will your access to bursary funding impact this?

Apply online

Health and Care Professional Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework Bursary Application

Award process

A panel will assess your application and score it against the prioritisation criteria.

Bursary prioritisation criteria

If there are more eligible applicants than there are funds available to award bursaries, we will use the following information from the bursary application form to prioritise who should receive bursaries. Where it is possible to do so, we will:

• Prioritise applicants who are currently studying or who have already achieved a qualification aligned with the Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework
• Include a range of professions
• Maximise bursary recipients from areas of clinical research skills shortages
• Prioritise applicants from geographical areas currently underserved by clinical research in their clinical speciality
• Prioritise applicants with more than 2 years' clinical experience
• The highest ranking applicants will be awarded bursaries and remaining high ranking applicants will be put on a reserve list

If you are unable to obtain a bursary, there is more information below about alternative funding options you can explore.

Other funding options or discounts

• Speak to your line manager as there may be some funding available for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in your organisation
• Contact your professional body, there may be some CPD funding available
• Find out if you could get funding or a discount from the universities: 
  • King's College London - Postgraduate taught fees and funding
  • Newcastle University - search Postgraduate Funding
  • University of Exeter - Scholarships and bursaries
  • University of Sheffield - Funding for postgraduate taught courses

Government funding

• Apply for a postgraduate loan. If you're from England, find out about a Master's loan on gov.uk
• Apply for a Disabled Student's Allowance on gov.uk if you're from England and have a learning difficulty, health problem or disability

Charities, trusts and other organisations

Other organisations provide funding for university courses.  Find details of charitable trusts and other organisations who provide funding:

• Find A Masters funding pages
• Funds Online
• Postgrad.com financial aid
• Postgraduatestudentships.co.uk
• Prospects scholarships and award search
• The Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding online guide
• Grants Online - Directory of Grant-Making Trusts
• Turn2Us
• UCAS postgraduate funding pages

Commercial companies

Some commercial organisations provide funding for university courses. These include pharmaceutical companies, or other companies related to specialist areas of medicine.

Information for employers

These qualifications will give learners the confidence and opportunity to become involved in the delivery of clinical research. They will be able to undertake leadership roles such as a Co-Investigator or Principal Investigator in your organisation.

"It's not just been an academic process.... the Research Practice Experience module... has really motivated me to develop our own Respiratory Advisory Group, which I'm currently in the process of setting up with a colleague. And I probably would never have been taught about doing that before the course and I certainly wouldn't have had the knowledge, or the confidence, to do it."

Rachel Thompson, former student

How to support learners

Before they apply

• Agree how much time they can spend on the course within working hours
• Help them find a suitable supervisor to support them with the workplace-based Research Practice Experience module

During the course

Allow them to flex their working commitments around the needs of the course. This may include:

• allowing them time to dedicate to research delivery
• supporting study leave
• backfilling clinical posts
• helping them connect with colleagues in local and national research networks

More information

Back to the Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework page