13.30, Tuesday 25 March 2025
This is an online event. Please register in advance to receive the Zoom link.
We use the term “clinical academics” to encompass medicine or health professionals, and early career researchers with clinical backgrounds in medicine, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, veterinary sciences, physiotherapy, radiography, or any other clinical profession.
Join our virtual career development event on Tuesday 25 March 2025, to hear from clinical academics from different career stages, specialities and backgrounds, alongside representatives from funders who will discuss funding pathways and opportunities.
The event will consist of a series of talks providing insight into career progression, sustainability in clinical research and practice, and the evolving landscape of funding and collaboration opportunities for aspiring clinical academics.
This event is open to everyone, aiming to provide exposure to various career pathways and create opportunities for learning and career development.
Our career development events are free and open to everyone. They are particularly useful for early career biomedical and health researchers, offering practical skills training and the chance to learn from peers and more senior academics. To hear about our upcoming events, funding schemes and other opportunities, follow Academy of Medical Sciences on LinkedIn, and @acmedsci on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Bluesky.
The event will begin at 13.30 and finish at 15.30.
Agenda:
| Time | Event segment | Lead |
| 13.30 | Welcome and personal perspective | Professor Mary Renfrew OBE FRSE FMedSci |
| 13.45 | Speaker presentations
|
|
| 14.55 | Break | |
| 15:00 | Q&A | All |
| 15.25 | Closing remarks | Professor Mary Renfrew OBE FRSE FMedSci |
| 15.30 | Event ends |
|
About the speakers:
Chair: Professor Mary Renfrew OBE FRSE FMedSci, University of Dundee
Mary Renfrew, Professor Emeritus at the University of Dundee, is a world-renowned researcher and leader in the fields of maternal and new-born care, infant feeding, and midwifery. She has been a pioneer in establishing midwifery as an academic discipline, establishing high quality multidisciplinary research programmes and building capacity. In infant feeding, her work has spanned clinical studies, epidemiology, economics, large-scale behaviour change, and evidence-informed policy; she has challenged harmful practices such as the separation of mothers and babies, tested community-based interventions, published high-impact systematic reviews, and has had a formative impact on international and national policy and practice for decades. She has recently completed an Independent Report on the maternity services in Northern Ireland, which has proposed evidence-based system-wide changes to improve safety, equity, and quality.
Professor Julia Sanders, Cardiff University
Professor Sanders is a Registered Midwife and Nurse, and researcher. Her research interests focus on maternity care and early years interventions. She holds joint posts between Cardiff University and Cardiff & Vale University Health Board. This provides exciting opportunities to lead on a programme Midwifery Research in the School of Healthcare Sciences whilst maintaining strong clinical links and leading the development of nurse and midwifery led research within the NHS.
She holds national roles including being the Wales NIHR Specialty lead for Reproductive Health and Childbirth. She is a member of Oxford University’s National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Clinical Trials Advisory Group, and a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Midwifery Development Steering Committee, based at Cardiff University.
Dr Katie Mckinnon, St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Katie McKinnon is a neonatal subspeciality trainee in London. She has just completed her PhD in preterm birth, socioeconomic status, and neurodevelopment at the University of Edinburgh. Her medical training was at the University of Oxford and University College London. Her interests are in neonatal neuroimaging and neurodevelopment, and health inequalities. Katie won first prize in the pre-doctoral plenary competition at CATAC 2023, and the Postgraduate Rising Star Award and the Women in Neuroscience UK awards 2024.
Dr Emily Wheater, Wellcome
Emily Wheater is a Research Manager in the Discovery Research team at Wellcome. Her work focuses on early careers and healthcare professional research careers, and working in partnership to provide sector-wide support. She has a background in neuroscience and completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2021.
Dr James Fenton, Assistant Director, Academy Programmes at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) with responsibility for Integrated Pathways
James currently has oversight of three programmes working with colleagues in his team to deliver the schemes and awards at pre-doctoral, doctoral and postdoctoral levels.
1) NIHR Institutional Awards Training (IAT) programme for Doctors and Dentists which funds Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) and Clinical Lecturer (CL) posts.
2) The NIHR Integrated and Practitioner Clinical and Academic (ICA) Programme which provides research training awards for registered health and care professions (excluding doctors and dentists) who wish to develop practitioner academic careers.
3) The Local Authority Academic Fellowship Programme (LAAF) for funding Fellows based within English local authority settings looking to develop as health or social care researchers.
James also supports the Clinical Academic Training Forum (CATF) as Secretariat.
Dr Kieran Lee, Senior Programme Manager, Academy Programmes at NIHR
Kieran is based in the Integrated Pathways Team and is responsible for the Predoctoral Award.