Creating new clinical academic posts: case studies
The Academy of Medical Sciences developed a series of case studies to inform discussions at our July 2025 Summit. These case studies provide examples of the goals, development processes, challenges and impacts of creating new clinical academic posts. We would like to thank all those who have provided case studies to us.
Case studies
- The MRC Medicines Development Fellowship Programme
- Liverpool’s Finn Fellowships
- Catalys – the Manchester Clinical Academic Centre
- Cambridge University Health Partners
- University of Glasgow Post Certificate of Completion of Training (post-CCT) Fellowship Scheme
The MRC Medicines Development Fellowship Programme
Background: The MRC Medicines Development Fellowship for Clinician Scientists was launched in 2025. It builds on the success of the North West England MRC Fellowship Scheme in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (2010–2025), which supported Clinical Research Fellows to complete a PhD.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed
David Weatherall Chair of Medicine,
University of Liverpool
Why was the scheme set up?
The aim of the scheme is to develop clinical academic capacity that can cross boundaries between academia, healthcare and industry. Clinical academics work well within academia and the NHS, and we wanted to extend this to industry, providing Fellows with training and experience in clinical pharmacology and other related areas.
Through the scheme, we wanted to develop people who can work between universities and industry, fostering joint working and creating synergies between these sectors to benefit the UK ecosystem. Developing such porosity between different sectors, along with a highly skilled workforce, is important for attracting industry to the UK.
Our long-term goal is to develop a national scheme, which could potentially be taken up by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the future.
How was the scheme developed?
The scheme was first established in 2010 as a partnership between the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester, which expanded to include four companies. We were successful in securing funding from the MRC to run the scheme, which supported 13 Fellows to gain PhDs. By demonstrating the success of the scheme, we sought and secured funding from the MRC to support a second round, which supported a further 15 Clinical Fellows (2016–2025). In 2024 we secured funding for the current iteration of the scheme – the MRC Medicines Development Fellowship Programme, for Clinician Scientists and Clinical Research Fellows.
In addition to funding, Fellows have access to a dedicated teaching programme, mentorship from academic and industry leaders, and opportunities to develop skills in leadership, patient involvement, communication and engagement.
What challenges did you face?
The industry partners have changed over time, which has presented challenges and opportunities. Starting afresh with new industry partners requires the development of new relationships and collaborative agreements. Working with an increased number of industry partners lays the foundation for running the scheme on a national basis, with a growing number of companies having an organisational memory of being part of the scheme.
We felt that during the first scheme there was a low level of interaction between the Fellows and industry. We were able to improve this by co-designing the second scheme with industry, providing Fellows with an industry-based supervisor. This has led to a closer engagement with industry, which we have improved further for the current scheme, where we expect Clinician Scientists to spend 50% of their time with industry.
Working for two different organisations, which could be in different parts of the country, the Fellows need to consider how their personal lives will be affected. If it were a national scheme, there would be much more flexibility on working locations.
What are the benefits?
All but one Fellow from the first scheme have continued to develop as clinical academics, moving through NIHR-funded clinical lectureships to more senior roles in HEIs. Several of these Fellows are now Professors or Associate Clinical Professors leading their own work in a range of clinical disciplines. During the scheme and since its completion, these Fellows have leveraged over £4 million in further funding to their universities and published high-impact papers.
Fellows have reported significant benefits from working with industry, developing skills and gaining insights into drug development that they could not have gained otherwise. Some Fellows have developed further interactions with other companies, which also helps the university with knowledge exchange.
We hold showcase events every year, which has increased interest from other people wanting to join the scheme.
What are the future scheme goals?
A big focus over the next five years will be the Clinician Scientists, whom we are supporting to develop their own, independent groups. I also want to emphasise the importance of this scheme, not only to the MRC, but to government. It is an important way of developing academics who can work between academia and industry, which will benefit the UK economy. It’s unique in the world – I don't know of any other scheme that’s doing this at the moment, which is a good thing for the UK, as we want to attract industry through providing a skilled workforce.
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Liverpool’s Finn Fellowships
Background: The Dr Ronald Finn Fellowships support senior clinicians at the University Hospitals of Liverpool Group to undertake clinical research in collaboration with the University of Liverpool.
Professor Louise Kenny
Executive Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences,
University of Liverpool
James Sumner
Chief Executive Officer,
University Hospitals of Liverpool Group
Why was the scheme set up?
Louise: I trained at Liverpool School of Medicine, and the university had once been a thriving training ground for clinical academics. When I returned about eight years ago, I was a bit dismayed to see that we now had one of the smallest numbers of clinical academics in our comparator group, and so we immediately set about trying to change that.
We’ve taken a variety of actions since then, including setting up the Finn Fellowships, and now we are in the top quartile in our comparator group for the number of clinical academics.
Working with James and his team, we established a novel scheme to attract back into academia clinical academics who, for a variety of reasons, had ended up in full-time clinical service. We also targeted colleagues from non-traditional clinical academic routes, who had advanced in and out of academic training, ending up in a full-time clinical service role.
The aim of the scheme was to identify the best applicants, buy out one day per week of their clinical time for research, and give them a few years to establish, or re-establish, a thriving clinical academic programme.
Overall, we have an ambition to be a research-immersive environment for the local population because that will improve patient outcomes. We know that if you take part in research, from the minute you walk through the door of the hospital to the moment you leave, outcomes will be 30% better on average.
James: I’ve only been here three years, but it was quite worrying to get here and see that research activity was declining in the major city teaching hospital where this is supposed to happen. It really has turned around very quickly, and we want to do more of this.
What challenges did you encounter when developing and running the scheme?
James: The main challenge was the money, as we’re in a very constrained financial position. However, we managed to get it approved at the perfect time. It’s relatively cost-effective, and it’s clear that it pays for itself in terms of retaining talent.
Having that shared vision of a future where the academics are sitting among the clinicians has been particularly important to this success. Louise arranged for us to visit the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, to see that vision in practice, and to really think about creating this in Liverpool.
While the money is always challenging, the relationships are the critical bit, as is having that whole Karolinska vision in our sights. We’ve knocked down the old hospital and got the brand new one, within our plans for the Academic Health Sciences Campus, where academics, clinicians and patients interact – it’s exactly where we want to get to.
What impacts and benefits have been delivered from the scheme?
Louise: The scheme is a win–win for the hospitals and university, helping us to retain talent. Now we’re attracting people from the places where previously our staff would move to. Within the first six months of the scheme, one of the fellows secured a five-year MRC/GSK Clinician Scientist Fellowship, which is a very good early marker of success.
The Finn fellows, alongside our established clinical academics, are very important role models for our medical students. They offer a huge number of opportunities for medical students toundertake electives and intercalated degrees in their clinical specialty of interest, which we wouldn't have if we didn't have that cadre of clinical academics. It becomes a virtuous circle. By retaining them and having them, they can offer the next generation those opportunities, putting clinical academia into their heads at an early stage.
James: From the hospitals’ perspective, and within a challenging NHS funding period, the scheme has been great from the perspective of retaining talent. The credibility it brings the department is massively beneficial. It also gives us the ability to recycle funding – once a fellow completes their placement, we can offer the funding to someone else.
We’ve seen some significant improvements in research locally, particularly in trauma. I think we’ll get more and more people pursuing opportunities like this, then either going fully into research, or bringing all that experience back to clinical practice into the NHS. So either way, it’s a win–win.
As we expand the scheme, we’re starting to get to a scale where it’s self-perpetuating, and we can get people to continue to cycle through the programme. We also want to include the other three specialist hospitals in Liverpool in the scheme.
What advice would you give to another organisation aiming to set up a similar scheme?
Louise: My advice is to get a hospital Chief Executive with the commitment to deliver on that shared vision. For a university Pro-Vice-Chancellor like me to work with a hospital Chief Executive like James, who just gets this vision, is just delightful. It’s not common, and I am incredibly grateful.
James: The best advice is to grab your hospital Chief Executive and show them what it looks like somewhere amazing, because everybody wants to be amazing, don’t they?
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Catalys – the Manchester Clinical Academic Centre
Dr Judith Johnson
Reader, Nursing & Midwifery; Clinical Psychologist; Director, Manchester Catalys
Dr Steven Rogers
Consultant Vascular Scientist; Senior Lecturer in Vascular Science;
Deputy Director, Manchester Catalys
Describe the partnership that has created clinical academic posts
Judith: The Manchester Clinical Academic Centre (Catalys) was first established in 2009 and refreshed in 2024 as a partnership between the Foundation Trust and the University to promote clinical academic careers. Our remit is to support non-medical, non-dental healthcare professions – nurses and AHPs – who form a disproportionately small part of the clinical academic workforce.
We’re a very small team, and our aims are to encourage clinicians into research through advice, advocacy, connections and relationship-building. We support internships and other initial research experiences. We also help people to pursue Masters degrees and doctorates, and develop postdoctoral research careers. We support peer networks, and provide advice on funding and feedback on applications. We work across all levels of seniority, helping registered healthcare professionals at any level. We’ve just completed a podcast series, called ‘Humans of Clinical Academia’, to demystify clinical academic careers.
Why was the scheme set up?
Steven: From the NHS trust’s perspective, we were seeing people securing highly prestigious fellowships and research training awards for PhDs, who wanted to continue in a clinical academic career. They needed to have time for clinical activity and/or clinical leadership and time for research and/or research leadership. The trust decided to do something slightly novel, by creating consultant roles for nurses, midwives, healthcare scientists and AHPs, with the idea of having 50% of their job plan in the clinic and 50% in research. The roles are fully funded by the trust, and its large size allows it to support a significant number of these posts.
The goal is that the clinical academics will usually deliver complex or advanced healthcare while doing clinical research, taking their clinical research skills into clinical practice to either upskill others or to improve service delivery and implementation.
What challenges have been encountered when supporting clinical academics?
Judith: Like all trusts, MFT is going through significant restructuring at the moment, and everything is being questioned. But as far as I understand it, these posts will be maintained because they support the delivery of a key part of the trust’s overarching strategy.
Generally, while how to understand or interpret research is taught in undergraduate programmes for nurses, midwives and AHPs, specific training on how to do research is not addressed. This can lead to a lot of misconceptions about research. The message we are trying to get out is that research is for undergraduates, and for newly qualified nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (NMAHPs). We know the earlier you can get someone into research in their career, the longer run they have at it, and the more likely they are to continue in it. This can mean that clinical skills do not develop in the same way, as it is very hard to maintain clinical activity alongside becoming a strong research leader. I think this may be more pronounced for non-medics than it is for medics.
Doing research is something that’s going to take staff away from the day job, which can be a threat to services. We often end up getting involved in some quite complex and challenging conversations where we’re trying to explain research. Part of our problem is that we are often being presented with people who are too advanced in their careers for it to be easy. Either they can be very specialised, and difficult to replace, or they have taken on more responsibilities. We have been supporting some quite senior people who are trying to juggle significant management responsibilities but are desperate to do their research.
What benefits and impacts have arisen?
Judith: This innovative approach has helped to embed research and clinical academic careers at MFT, building on the strong relationships between MFT and the three Manchester universities. A recent look at people – mainly nurse consultants at levels 8b to 8d – supported by the centre through fellowships and PhDs revealed that quite a few of them had taken up lectureships and professorships at the University of Manchester and other universities in the city. They’re now teaching the next generation of nurses, and so one of the benefits from our work is building the city’s capacity in nursing and in nurses doing research.
Steven: The adage that research-active organisations have better outcomes for patients is a key benefit. More people across a trust doing clinical research and leading clinical research, by nature, is going to improve the outcomes of the population that is served. That’s why research is one of the trust’s five strategic priorities.
A key benefit is cross-fertilisation – taking senior clinical experience into the academic institution, which is good for identifying research questions and providing leadership. It also works the other way – they take advanced research skills that they have acquired into their practice. They’ll gain a greater understanding of how guidelines are developed and utilised across an organisation, and they’ll also be able to look at that translational gap between a good piece of academic research and how this can be applied in a healthcare setting. Working across that gap is often a challenge for them and for the organisation. Having a dedicated workforce with those skills is valuable to the trust, and to patients.
What advice would you give to other organisations seeking to support the engagement of nurses and AHPs in research?
Judith: It’s important to have a partnership across both organisations to do this. There needs to be clear communication, a shared vision, and a dedicated team with access to knowledge from both places.
Steven: One of the vital things is to have research as a clear strategic priority for the trust. This provides weight when negotiating job plans because people can be held to that strategy.
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Cambridge University Health Partners
Professor Charlotte Summers
Director of the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart & Lung Research Institute;
Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University of Cambridge; and
Honorary Consultant, Cambridge University
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Roland Sinker
Chief Executive of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Describe the clinical academic partnership at Cambridge
Roland: At Cambridge, there is very strong alignment between the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University (who do a lot of our nurse training and some research), the NHS, and a wide range of industry partners, housed largely in the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. We have a range of missions including transforming health and care, supporting discovery science and its translation to impact, and economic growth. For that, you need the right blend of clinicians and academics.
Charlotte: The NHS organisations in Cambridge have been very enlightened in their thinking of the importance of clinical academics. They have invested their own NHS money in making academic posts, alongside the investment of research funders. Most recently, the Royal Papworth Hospital relocated to the biomedical campus and contributed to building the Heart and Lung Research Institute, of which I’m Director. The hospital has also recognised that having clinical academic leadership contributes to improving the care of their patients. Over the next three years they will be recruiting five Associate Professor posts hosted within the University, all entirely funded by Papworth.
What are the impacts and benefits?
Roland: With good clinical academics, you get strong leaders who are driven, motivated and want to change the world. They provide the local grassroots leadership, galvanising the workforce. They are also good conveners and build coalitions; having them in your portfolio helps you to attract talent. Our clinical academics have partnered with companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft, playing a part in company decisions to move their research headquarters to Cambridge. This leads to jobs for local people.
Charlotte: If the NHS wants patient care that is better quality, delivered more cheaply and, ideally, more rapidly, this can’t be achieved without innovators and researchers. Embedding researchers in the health ecosystem is absolutely mission critical. Clinical academics helped us to get out of the pandemic and begin recovery, through doing trials of vaccines and therapies, and they have contributed to the development of new treatments for many other diseases.
What are the challenges?
Roland: I would say we have done very well in Cambridge appointing academics with a clinical interest,typically in the discovery science space. We have done less well in appointing or enabling clinicians with an academic interest to really have the profile and the investment that they need. We’re looking at how to get the NHS part of research working better, through data, clinical trials, and having a single research office that signs off on clinical trials, merged between the university and the hospital. We also looking at what more we can do to translate discovery science into the NHS.
Charlotte: There’s a strong cultural mindset embedded at senior level across the University and the NHS Trusts, of research being everybody’s business. If problems do arise, we have good relationships between the organisations to work through such issues. A good example is Papworth committing to change their board strategy to become a research hospital, which has been followed by putting aside money for this commitment. This has been a journey for everybody involved and has taken a lot of discussions. We’re now in a good place – we all agree on the mission, and from there we are working on how to deliver it. It will be transformative for Papworth and brilliant for our institute too.
What advice would you give to other organisations?
Roland: Recommendations from a recent review that I led for the NHS, called the Innovation Ecosystem Programme, are very relevant to the leadership for any hospital/university partnership seeking to improve healthcare through innovation. The review’s recommendations included:
- Having a mission mindset, with NHS/university governance organised to support a shared
endeavour - Having a culture and training that develop people with the right skills and
capabilities - Getting the wiring right in your innovation system.
Charlotte: I think often there is a mindset that the NHS is about direct clinical care, and that research is a separate ‘nice to have’, rather than an essential part of providing high-quality clinical care. As our systems get more squashed in every direction, people look for things that they think are optional and that we can stop doing. When we stop doing research and innovation, we have a problem. If you were running a commercial organisation and your research and development (R&D) budget was slashed to zero, you would not have a viable business. So why do we do that in a hospital business, where our patients’ lives, arguably, depend on our ability to research and deliver innovation? By starting from the point that research is everybody’s business, it just becomes a matter of how, rather than should, we deliver it.
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University of Glasgow Post Certificate of Completion of Training (post-CCT) Fellowship Scheme
Professor Christian Delles
Professor, Head of School, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Health,
University of Glasgow
Background: The University of Glasgow’s Post-CCT Fellowship Scheme provides bridging support to clinical academics, helping them to progress their research and prepare grant applications for longer-term fellowship funding.
Describe your local model for supporting clinical academic posts
I chair our Clinical Academic Training Advisory Committee (CATAC), which looks at the whole spectrum of clinical academic training in Glasgow, from the specialised foundation programme to the post-CCT sphere. Over the years, CATAC’s role has expanded from assigning Clinical Lectureships to a more strategic overview of clinical academic training. Some elements are well supported, and through this committee, we bring everybody together to identify training gaps and develop support to bridge these.
Why was the scheme set up?
Probably the most important thing that we have done over the last few years is to invest in post-CCT fellowships. So far, we have created four of these posts, one in each of the last four years. We made a strategic decision to support those who needed an additional year or two to get into a better position for obtaining a competitively funded fellowship, with the aim of keeping them in academia, rather than becoming a full-time NHS consultant.
The scheme is funded by an endowment through the university, which supports five sessions, with one extra academic session from the appointing school, and five sessions from the NHS board, which is the main challenge. We invite applications from a wide range of specialties such as cardiovascular, oncology, rheumatology, nephrology, general medicine, paediatric surgery, and colorectal surgery.
In addition to funding, we provide access to advanced grant coaching with five places per year for clinical academics, one of which is for the post-CCT fellow. The scheme provides mentoring and coaching to help candidates develop their grant applications, involving two subject specialists and a third person who is not a specialist in the candidate’s subject.
What are the impacts and benefits?
We’ve been running this for four years and are just about to appoint the fourth candidate. So far, it’s been successful, but we need to see in a few years how it really translates into transforming the system. The first candidate we supported with this bridge funding went on to secure funding for five years from the Wellcome Trust, which was wonderful.
What are the challenges?
Over the last few years, I have seen a range of challenges in clinical academic training, where people are very enthusiastic, and want to start training, but then drop out because the next stage is not supported very well. At the postdoctoral phase particularly, colleagues often don’t have the time to write up their thesis, or to publish, and then they are lost somehow.
The post-CCT funding landscape has always been competitive; however, the amount of funding that is available has become worse. While Glasgow is a strong university, we have seen that relatively few people from the university were applying for intermediate clinical fellowships.
Several factors may be contributing to this. We provide a broad clinical training. At 80:20, our clinical lectureships offer less time for research than the 50:50 lectureships elsewhere. We have a very large number of patients locally, affecting the patient–doctor ratio. Therefore, colleagues come out of the programme a bit later, and understandably, are academically not as competitive as they could be when going for these intermediate fellowships. That’s why we thought we need to give them some additional time to retain them as clinical academics.
What advice would you give to other organisations?
It is very important to have your NHS trust on board. Ideally this can be done by a general agreement in which the trust (or board in Scotland) agrees to cover five sessions for the successful candidates, irrespective of what specialty they are working in. If this is not possible, I would advise limiting opportunities to areas where there is strategic excellence and strength. This could mean seeking agreement from the NHS trust to ring-fence sessions for three specialties, for example. From there, you would see that it really adds value – these are highly motivated people who have had a very interesting start to their first consultant position. They will be extremely
motivated, and if successful in securing a fellowship they will contribute to the NHS, almost for free, which will be a huge benefit in the long term.
My further advice would be to identify gaps across the pathway and invest in them to retain your clinical academic workforce.
What else would help the scheme’s future?
It would be helpful to have more money for the scheme. Recently, we had two very strong candidates who were equally appointable, but we only had funding for one. It would be great if we could increase the level of support available at this critical phase.
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