Clinical Academics in Training Annual Conference

Are you an early career researcher in medicine or health looking for a chance to present your research, perhaps for the first time?

CATAC is a great opportunity for you to:

• Develop your presentation skills.
• Meet with your peers and senior academics to build networks.
• Raise your profile within the clinical academic and research community.

Read about the CATAC 2023 event and hear from the attendees.

This event is generously supported by Wellcome and The Lord Leonard and Lady Estelle Wolfson Foundation.

We hold three competitions at CATAC for all early-career researchers in medicine and health (with clinical backgrounds in all disciplines and specialities) currently working in the UK: 

•    Post-Doctoral Plenary Competition
This competition is for clinical researchers who have passed their PhD viva, at the abstract submission closing date. If selected, you will be asked to prepare a 10-minute oral presentation, followed by 5 minutes of questions from the audience. A panel of judges will score the presentations. The winner and runner-up of this competition will receive a monetary prize. 

•    Pre-Doctoral Plenary Competition
This competition is for clinical researchers who have not yet passed their PhD viva at the abstract submission closing date. If selected, you will be asked to prepare a 5-minute oral presentation, to be followed by 2 minutes of questions from the audience. A panel of judges will score the presentations. The winner and runner-up of this competition will receive a monetary prize.  

•    Poster Competitions
This competition is for all clinical researchers. If selected, you’ll be expected to prepare a poster and a 2-minute presentation. Posters will be grouped randomly not by broad research categories.

Like last year, posters will be judged by your peers, the CATAC attendees. All attendees will be randomly assigned a poster group for which they will act as judge. Poster competitors are not permitted to judge this competition. There will be one winner and one runner-up for each group who will each receive a monetary prize.  

Further details and application guidance can be found under the ‘Downloads’ section on the right-hand side of the page. 

Please note that participation in the competitions is not compulsory. You can attend the conference without competing.

This event is generously supported by Wellcome.

To be eligible for the CATAC event competitions, you must be an early-career researcher in medicine or health. While we welcome applications from all fields of clinical research, we encourage applications from nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals. All applicants must meet all the following criteria:

• Based in the UK
• Either studying for your PhD or have completed your PhD and are conducting research as an early-career post-doctoral researcher
• Conducting academic research that is related to your clinical background
• Hold a relevant undergraduate and/or master’s degree, for example: medicine, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, veterinary sciences or other health professional degree

If you have any questions regarding your eligibility, please contact [email protected]

This event is generously supported by Wellcome.

CATAC is the result of the evolution of our prestigious annual meeting for clinical academics following an independent evaluation.

CATAC 2025

Held at Leeds City Museum on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Read more about it.

CATAC 2024

Held at Riddel Hall, Queen's University Belfast on Wednesday 17 April 2024.

Read more about it.

CATAC 2023

Held at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge on 7 June 2023, CATAC 2023 was open to nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals to ensure that all clinical backgrounds would be represented.

Many elements of this event were live-streamed to allow for virtual attendees.

Read more about it.

CATAC 2022

This took place at the Bristol Harbour Hotel, Bristol on 19 May 2022. Before that, CATAC took several years off due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“My first experience attending CATAC in 2022 was fascinating. All the presentations were brilliant and inspiring. I was really honoured to have won the first prize of the poster competition."
- Dr Haotian Gu CATAC 2022 First-place winner: Poster Group D – Neurology; Neuroscience; Imaging; Technology

You can watch back some of the event sessions . This includes all plenary competition presentations and a wonderful keynote speech from Professor Charlotte Summers. The page also includes details of all the competition winners. 

CATAC 2018

Held at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, on Thursday 08 November 2018.

Read more about it.

This event is generously supported by Wellcome.