The funding call for Postdoctoral Fellowship applications is due to open at 11am on 4 November 2024. The closing date for applications is 11 am on 31 January 2025. Interviews will be held on 26 June 2025.
Purpose of the awards
The Postdoctoral Fellowship schemes will allow a fellow to hold research funds in their own name, and to undertake an independent research project under the supervision of an established member of the stroke research community. It is a condition of award that the fellow seeks to obtain further research funds during the tenure of the award in order to consolidate and advance their career.
Postdoctoral Fellowship (PDF):
The Stroke Association’s research strategy aims to increase the UK funding base and capacity for stroke research across the full stroke care pathway. This award is for candidates who do not wish to undertake clinical activity during their PDF, or who do not have a clinical background.
These Fellowships are aimed at developing the stroke research leaders of the future. Postdoctoral Fellowships are intended to provide the necessary skills and training for the development of an independent career in stroke research.
Clinical-Academic Postdoctoral Fellowship (CPDF):
We wish to embed research within clinical stroke care, and this award focuses on supporting capacity for clinical academic roles in stroke. Clinical academic roles provide an opportunity to close the gap between research and practice, whereby a reciprocal relationship can occur to improve the implementation of evidence-based practice, and to use real-world clinical issues as a basis for the development of research projects. There is currently a lack of formalised clinical academic career pathways for Nurses and Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), and in alignment with the Health Education England (HEE) strategy, we wish to demonstrate a commitment to formalising this pathway.
The Postdoctoral Clinical-Academic Fellowship (CPDF) is aimed at the future clinical-academic leaders in stroke who have already completed a PhD and are establishing themselves nationally, both clinically and academically.
Remit of the award
The Stroke Association supports Fellows who plan to conduct stroke research into clinical and applied health, including social care research. This includes research that is conducted to answer specific questions relating to day-to-day practice in health services or community settings, and which has the potential to have an impact on the health or well-being of people affected by stroke. A clear trajectory to patient benefit is essential.
For the CPDF, the Stroke Association wishes to support fellows who have forged a clinical career in stroke, and have developed their own research question(s) from clinical experience. We wish to support fellows who wish to be an ambassador for clinical academic careers in stroke.
The Fellow’s proposed project should align with the priorities for stroke research, as set by the 2021 James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (PS) for either prevention and acute care, or rehabilitation and long-term care. Further details can be found on the Priority Setting Partnership page. We are also looking for applications in childhood stroke that fall under the priorities of the Childhood Neurological Disabilities PSP Top 10. There is only a limited amount of childhood stroke research underway, therefore we wish to promote research in paediatric stroke in this call. Any applications addressing one or more of these priorities must have a clear link to stroke prevention, treatment or care.
Eligibility requirements
The eligibility requirements for each award can be found in the postdoctoral guidance document here.
Please contact the Research Team if you are unsure of, or have any queries regarding, your eligibility for this award.
Scope of Funding
PDF:
The maximum funding amount that can be applied for is £235,000 over a period of 3 to 5 years. Fellowships may be taken up on a part-time, pro-rata basis but the minimum working ours would be equivalent to 0.6 FTE i.e., applicants cannot apply for the full amount if they want to work part time over 3 years only. If they would like to do this, the cost of the award will be reduced accordingly.
CPDF:
The CPDF will fund the research activity of the fellow – including their time spent on research activity, and research costs. The maximum funding amount that can be applied for is £235,000. It is expected that the research component of the CPDF will be undertaken at a minimum of 0.5 FTE. The length of the CPDF should be calculated according to the split of research and clinical activity, and it is expected that it will be completed over a period of 4 to 6 years. It is expected that the clinical activity is funded within the fellow’s NHS or Statutory Social Care Organisation contract of employment.
Patient and Public Involvement
We expect applicants to have involved people affected by stroke in the planning and development stages of their funding application, and to continue to do so should their application be successful. This involvement should be meaningful, and people affected by stroke should have a real opportunity to contribute to your research.
In the application you will be asked how you have involved public and/or patients in this research and/or the application, how you will involve public and/or patients in this research going forward, what the impacts and benefits will be for them (short and/or longer term) and how you plan to disseminate this work to them.
We are able to offer you advice or answer questions you may have about involvement. If you would like us to contact people affected by stroke to gain feedback on your proposal we can help, however, please beware that we will not support any request made to us less than eight weeks prior to the application deadline.
You can find out more about how we can help you to involve people affected by stroke in your work by visiting our Patient and public involvement in research page.
Apply
Please read our Postdoctoral Guidance document and Conditions of Award before beginning an application:
Applications must be submitted to our online award management system.
To begin an application, please create an account by clicking ‘register’ in the top right hand corner. If you have previously interacted with us, then your email address may already be in the system. If you find that this is the case, please click on ‘Login’ and ‘Forgot password?’ The system will then email you instructions to set yourself a password.
After you have logged in, please click on ‘Application Portal’ at the top of the page, then select which award you would like to start an application for, from the ‘Click here to start an application’ search bar in the blue panel on this page.
This system should work on all major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge, but we would not recommend using Internet Explorer below version 9.
If you have any issues with the system or have any feedback, please email us at research@stroke.org.uk.
Adjudication
Postdoctoral Fellowships are awarded on the recommendation of a panel made up of members of the Stroke Association’s Research Awards Pool and our Stroke Voices in Research group using the system of expert external peer review, and a candidate interview with the panel. We are currently reviewing and updating our peer review policy which will be available online later this year.
Interviews will be held on 26 June 2025. You’ll be informed two weeks before whether you have been shortlisted for an interview.
Our interview panel
Members of our Research Awards Pool (RAP) are chosen based on the expertise required on adjudication panels. To avoid conflicts of interest, any RAP member applying for funding in any of our funding rounds will take no part in the adjudication of that round. All RAP members sign up to our RAP Code of Practice. All applications are sent out for external peer review and all reviewers sign our Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest Policy.
If you are a research expert and would like to register your interest in becoming a member of our Research Awards Pool, please email us at research@stroke.org.uk.
2023-24 Panel Members:
- Chair: Dr Catherine Ford (University of East Anglia)
- Professor Mark Tarrant (University of Plymouth)
- Dr Fatemeh Geranmayeh (Imperial College London)
- Dr Arpita Bose (University of Reading)
- Tia Bush (Stroke Voices in Research)
- Joanie Scott (Stroke Voices in Research)
Success rates for Postdoctoral Fellowship awards
You can find details of the number of applications received and the number funded for this stream in recent years here:
Postdoctoral Fellowship Success Rates
Visit funding web page
(https://www.stroke.org.uk/research/our-funding-schemes/postdoctoral-fellowships)
