Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers

These grants provide up to £30,000 over 1-2 years for research costs, to support Clinical Lecturers who are looking to develop and strengthen their research careers.

 

Key dates

Round 31 is now closed for applications.

 

 

 

 
Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers offer funding of up to £30,000 to cover the cost of research consumables. The grants allow research-active Clinical Lecturers to gather data to strengthen their bids for longer-term fellowships and funding.


To develop your grant application, £2,500 may be available to fund up to five public and patient contributor’s time and expenses. Use of this funding is not mandatory to apply for a Starter Grant. More information is available here.

Starter Grants Timeline

The above diagram illustrates the application process for the two rounds of the Starter Grants award and provides rough dates for each stage. Please note that these dates are to serve as a guide only and can be subject to change. 

About the scheme

This scheme was launched in October 2008 as a partnership between the Academy and the Wellcome Trust. Current funders of the scheme are the Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation (since 2011), Versus Arthritis (since 2012), Medical Research Council (since 2013), Diabetes UK (since 2016), the Association of Physicians of Great Britain & Ireland (since 2020) and Prostate Cancer UK (since 2023).  We recently celebrated ten years since the launch of the Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers scheme. The achievements of the awardees are cause for celebration. To mark this, we have published our ‘Starter for 10: a decade of supporting academic Clinical Lecturers’ report which sets out the successes and includes case studies drawn from the last decade.

The grants provide modest ‘starter’ funds to enable research active Clinical Lecturers to pursue their research work. Clinical Lecturer posts provide a salary but often do not come with the funding to support the costs of the research. This scheme was designed to help bridge this gap by providing Clinical Lecturers with access to modest research funds for up to two years. It gives them experience of preparing a research grant application and helps them establish their research portfolios by providing funding for research consumables.

So far we have supported 642 Clinical Lecturers through 28 rounds of funding, with grants totalling over £18 million. The 10th anniversary report (2018) and the latest annual report (2020) can be accessed in the 'Downloads' section.

In November 2020, the academy launched an exciting new programme called PILLAR (Promoting Innovation, Learning, Leadership And Resilience in the research community). This programmer offers support to our grant awardees. For more information please visit the main PILLAR page here.

Recent Awardees

Nabih Alkhouri, University College London, Renewal MI second generation- from restorative to pulp regeneration material

Asmaa Al-Taie, University of Leeds, Wear characteristics of modern dental ceramic materials and their opposing dentition

Kavit Amin, University of Manchester, Developing a Porcine Ex-Vivo Living Limb System to Investigate the Bidirectional Control of Advanced Prostheses

Alex Aquilina, Bristol Medical School, Core Outcomes for Periprosthetic Femoral Fractures

Benjamin Faber, University of Bristol, Identifying potential drug targets for Osteoarthritis using data from the Genetics of Osteoarthritis Endophenotype Working Group.

Sophie Gu, University of Cambridge, Development of a biomechanical simulation platform for the prediction of coronary plaque destabilisation

Charlotte Hellmich, University of East Anglia, Investigating the role of differentially expressed glutamine synthetase in aged haematopoietic stem cells.

Thomas Jackson, University College London, Developing syngeneic models of CAR-T therapy for neuroblastoma

Christopher Jones, University of Cambridge, The impact of clonal cooperation on tumour resistance to ionising radiation

Roxanne Keynejad, King's College London, Collaborative development of a hybrid type 2 effectiveness-implementation randomised controlled trial protocol in rural Ethiopia

Elizabeth Li, University of Birmingham, Stopping unnecessary surgery: A behavioural change intervention to tackle the misdiagnosis of appendicitis and improve patient outcomes

Gashirai Mbizvo, University of Liverpool, An international cohort study assessing the morbidity and mortality risks of valproate withdrawal in men and women aged 16–54 years with epilepsy

Sarah Mills, University of St Andrews, Use of Point-of-Care C-Reactive Protein Testing in the General Practice Out-of-Hours Service in Scotland: A Pilot Study.

Matthew Nour, University of Oxford, Decoding natural language in psychiatry: from cognitive maps to scalable biomarkers

Olakunle Oginni, Cardiff University, Disentangling the mechanisms of early childhood psychopathology in a resource-poor setting using a genetically informative design: a pilot twin study in southwestern Nigeria

Toby Pillinger, King's College London, Cardiac structure and function in people with first episode psychosis

Nuria Sanchez Clemente, St. George's, University of London, Using electronic health records to describe the health of migrant children and young people who require an interpreter in England.

Ashwin Venkataraman, King's College London, Quantification of the utility and feasibility of portable ultra-low-field MRI to investigate dementia in older adults under memory services.

Nicola Vousden, University of Oxford, Leveraging linked data and lived experience to design interventional studies aiming to improve maternal and infant outcomes for pregnant women living with disadvantage

Rachel Wake, St George's University of London, Investigating Combination Antifungal Therapy with Flucytosine for the Prevention of Antifungal Resistance during Treatment of Invasive Candidiasis

Janine Yazdi-Doughty, University of Liverpool, A study to explore how adults experience oral health-related stigma and their perspectives about how to destigmatise differences in oral health status.

Angeliki Zarkali, University College London, Quantifying the contribution of cerebral amyloid angiopathy to Lewy body dementias

Caroline McCarthy, University of Liverpool, Multi-spectral phenotyping of the immune microenvironment in Oral Lichen Planus

Kushalav Abeysekera, University of Bristol, Investigating the rise of liver disease in young adults in the UK

Ryckie Wade, University of Leeds, Quantitative MRI of Skeletal Muscle For Assessing the Site and Severity of Ulnar Nerve Entrapment: A Pilot Study

Peter Hanlon, University of Glasgow, Enhancing routine healthcare data to compare frailty and multimorbidity in randomised controlled trials versus routine care

Joseph  Ward, University College London, Using administrative data to estimate burden of chronic disease in children and young people in England

William Watson, University of Cambridge, Does increased lipid metabolism alter cardiac function in ischaemic cardiomyopathy?

Joshua Luis, University College London, Müller glial cell response during acute intraocular pressure elevation

Xilin Wu, Queen Mary University of London, Investigating the role of TMEM132E in the production of aldosterone, and whether it is required for membrane trafficking of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the adrenal.

Karyn Ayre, University of Edinburgh, An Implementation Science Approach to Complex Social Circumstances Among Antenatal Women with Moderate-Severe Mental Illness.

Donal Skelly, University of Oxford, Investigating the Immune Landscape of the Meninges in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Spatial Transcriptomics Pilot Study

Ana-Catarina Pinho-Gomes, University College London, Association between exposure to air pollution in utero and childhood health outcomes

Mark Ellul, University of Liverpool, Understanding disease mechanisms of postinfectious autoimmunity in herpes simplex virus encephalitis

Andreas Hadjinicolaou, University of Cambridge,  Investigating the utility of the Cytosponge and molecular biomarkers to identify patients at risk of gastric cancer

Neil  Graham, Imperial College London, The UK CTE Study - understanding the long-term outcomes of head impact exposure

Candice Downey, University of Leeds School of Medicine, A feasibility evaluation investigating the impact of emergency laparotomy and its complications on healthcare costs and patients’ quality of life

Sarah Prentice, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Identifying transcriptomic signatures of BCG-induced protection against heterologous infections in infants

Lettie Rawlins, University of Exeter Medical School. A community approach to accelerate the discovery of the molecular basis of neurodevelopmental disorders in Pakistan

Lucy Plumb, University of Bristol, Refining and validating a clinical prediction score for childhood chronic kidney disease

Jennifer Lane, Queen Mary University of London, Improving surgical and device epidemiology in real world big data: leading an international collaboration

Jesmeen Maimaris, University College London, Genetic and immunological characterisation of novel JAK/STAT signalling pathway defects in primary immunodeficiency diseases

Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, Queen Mary University of London, The ONCOVER Study: Optimising cardiovascular risk stratification in people with cancer

Mohamed Mohamed, University College London, Risk assessment and long-term outcomes of acute coronary syndrome management strategy in cardio-oncology patients

Charikleia Papadopoulou, University of Cambridge, Understanding the molecular mechanisms behind ischaemic cardiomyopathy

Tom Abbott, Queen Mary University of London, A national perioperative platform trial to promote diversity in perioperative research

Simon Abram, University of Oxford, Leveraging Routinely Collected Big Data to Benchmark and Improve Surgical Care Outcomes

Simon Bell, University of Sheffield, Understanding the role of Hexokinase 1 deficiency as a contributor to the cellular pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Alison Berner, Queen Mary University of London, Genomic Origins Of Sex-bias in Colorectal Cancer Epidemiology (GOOSCCE)

Simon Biddie, University of Edinburgh, Uncovering functional host non-coding genetic variants associated with risk of severe COVID-19 using high-throughput screening

Matthew Clarke, Institute of Cancer Research, The classification and characterisation of high-grade gliomas in teenagers and young adults

Helen Devine, Newcastle University, Is there dysfunction at the neuromuscular junction in spinal bulbar muscular atrophy which can be a future target for therapeutic intervention in SBMA and other motor neuron diseases?

Sarah Dorrington, King's College London, Mental health and occupational outcomes of people accessing an early pregnancy unit (EPAU) in south London: an eLIXIR data linkage study

Alexander Fletcher, University of Glasgow, Non-invasive molecular imaging to measure fibroblast activation in right ventricular disease

Amanda Goodwin, University of Nottingham, Understanding how mesenchymal G protein signalling controls lung development and repair

Robert Hyde, University of Nottingham, The automated diagnosis of disease using machine vision: lameness in dairy cattle

Theresa Hydes, University of Liverpool, Patient preferences for the delivery of the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease clinical pathway: let’s move towards patient-centered care

Miriam Manook, University of Cambridge, Systems serology in transplantation: comprehensive profiling of HLA antibodies to stratify immunological risk

Chris Miles, St George's University of London, Utility of the high-lead ECG configuration during exercise stress testing in Brugada syndrome

Hannah Nieto, University of Birmingham, FNA-seq: Nanopore sequencing of fine needle aspirate samples to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancer

Karl Payne, University of Birmingham, COMBined Blood And Tissue prediction for immunotherapy response in recurrent/metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (COMBAT HNSCC)

Laurence Pearmain, University of Manchester, Resolving  monocyte-derived macrophage extracellular matrix crosstalk within the fibrotic niche for precision biomarker guided therapies in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.

Adam Pennycuick, University College London, Parallelised Cancer Therapy based on Copy Number Targeting

Haseeb Rahman, King's College London, Improving diagnosis and outcomes of Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction by applying a network approach across the UK

Sayyid Raza, University of Manchester, Understanding the role of Neuron Navigator 3 in kidney fibrosis

Akshay Shah, University of Oxford, Inflammatory phenotypes, haemoglobin recovery and economic evaluation of treating anaemia in survivors of critical illness

Bo Sun, University of Oxford, Transcriptomic profiling of autoantibody-mediated neuronal perturbations in CASPR2-antibody encephalitis

Joshua Totty, Hull & York Medical School, First-in-man clinical trial investigating the effect of hair cycle modulation on wound healing.

Lucy Whitaker, University of Edinburgh, Improving understanding of endometriosis pain flares to support patients with self-management and prevention (EndoFLARE): a feasibility study

Yanushi Wijeyeratne, St George's University of London, Polygenic association study of risk and phenotype in SCN5A-E1784K families

Adam Al-Diwani, University of Oxford, Cervical lymph node aspirations: cellular and molecular phenotyping at an emerging neuro-immune nexus

Rubika Balendra, University College London, Investigating mechanisms of RNA dysregulation in C9orf72-associated motor neuron disease and frontotemporal dementia

Lucy Beishon, University of Leicester, Vascular mEchanismS in, dePression, dementiA, and deliRum: The VESPAR project

Floryne Buishand, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Identification of novel druggable targets in canine insulinoma through single-cell transcriptomic analysis

Nicholas Cunniffe, University of Cambridge, Examining the long-term effects of the combination of metformin and clemastine on remyelination and neuroprotection; a follow-up study of the Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair trial Two

Adam Dale, University of Southampton,
Characterising human CD4+ effector T cell responses following experimentally-induced colonisation with genetically-modified Neisseria lactamica expressing the meningococcal vaccine antigen, Neisseria adhesin A.

Kate Duhig, University of Manchester, Developing MRI sequences to Assess maternal cardiac and Placental function in women with HyperteNsion in prEgnancy (DAPHNE)

Laura Goodfellow, University of Liverpool,
Are yeasts the missing link between the vaginal bacteria and preterm birth?

Dermot Linden, Queen's University Belfast, Epstein-Barr Virus suppression in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (EViSCO): A mechanistic study to evaluate the sputum transcriptome and microbiome in moderate-to-severe COPD

Johnathan Millar, University of Edinburgh,
Functional genomics and ARDS: in-silico and in-vitro gene editing to dissect genome wide associations in patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Camus Nimmo, Francis Crick Institute,
Targeted mutagenesis to identify resistance conferring mutations for new drugs for Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Emma Rose McGlone, Imperial College London, Hepatic glucagon sensitivity before and after bariatric surgery: use of a plasma biomarker to predict resolution of metabolic-associated liver disease

Michaela Reichmann, University of Southampton, Multidimensional transcriptomic analysis of tuberculosis granulomas to define pathophysiological mechanisms

Ola Rominiyi, University of Sheffield, High-grade glioma treatment design through mapping spatial differences in the DNA damage response of cancer stem cells

Neil Ryan, University of Bristol, MicrosatEllite Womb Surveillance (MEWS) study

Yazan Sulaiman Khaled, University of Leeds, Developing a novel theranostic nanoparticle for precision surgery in pancreatic cancer

Eugene Tang, Newcastle University,
The Impact of Cognitive Difficulties On Post-Stroke Recovery

Wendy Thompson, University of Manchester, Developing ways to evaluate process during the clinical trial of a dental antibiotic stewardship intervention

Oliver Todd, University of Leeds, Stratified hypertension management in later life: establishment of cohort linkage between ambulatory blood pressure measurements and routine health and social care data in Connected Bradford

Tabitha Turner-Stokes, Imperial College London, From human genetics to monocyte-specific disease mechanisms in systemic lupus erythematosus

Yize Wan, Queen Mary University of London, Acute illness as a driver of long-term disease and health inequality across socioeconomic and ethnic groups

Hannah Woodcock, University of Cambridge, Investigating lung epithelial progenitor cell fate in the developing human lung

Kathryn Allan, University of Glasgow, Investigating the impact of Coxiella burnetii infection on dairy cattle in Scotland.

Emily Bowen, University of Bristol, Investigating Shiga toxin-induced endothelial glycocalyx dysfunction as a potential therapeutic target in Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome

Mitchell Chen, Imperial College London, Deep Learning and Radiomics-based Cardiovascular Disease Assessment on Ungated Contrast Enhanced Computed Tomography and its Integration in a Clinical Predictive Model for Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Radoslaw Debiec, University of Leicester, Bicuspid aorRtic vAlVe gEnetic research – tHoracic aortic 18F-fluoridE microcAlcification to monitoR aorTopathy (BRAVE-HEART substudy)

Lydia Finney, Imperial College London, Investigating the role of specialist pro-resolving mediators in viral exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Daniel Fudulu, University of Bristol, Metabolomoics and clinical based predictive modles for acute kidney injury after coronary atery bypass grafting

Rebecca Gosling, University of Sheffield, Comprehensive modelling of myocardial ischaemic bur

Timothy Hardy, Newcastle University, Characterisation of somatic mutation analysis in cell free DNA of patients with Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Jamilla Hussain, Hull & York Medical School, Health inequalities related to ethnicity and socio-economic position at the end-of-life

David Hutchings, University of Manchester, Why is lamin cardiomyopathy a perfect storm for arrhythmias?

Eleni Louka, University of Oxford, Investigating the mechanisms of relapse in Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (JMML)

Imran Noorani, Francis Crick Institute, Defining the molecular impact of extrachromosomal oncogenes on cellular interactions in the glioblastoma microenvironment

Majd Protty, Cardiff Univeristy, Investigating the role of procoagulant enzymatically oxidized phospholipids in arterial thrombosis using in vivo models

Mahim Qureshi, University of Bristol, Composite primary endpoints for randomised controlled trials of invasive and surgical procedures

Rebecca Spencer, University of Leeds, Circulating placental extracellular vesicles as non-invasive placental biopsies and sources of diagnostic markers in fetal growth restriction

Tathyane Teshima, University College London, Identifying the cellular and genetic profile of salivary gland damage in Sjogren’s Syndrome with focus on how specific tissues influence disease at single-cell level

Ganesh Vigneswaran, University of Southampton, Machine learning to identify predictors of outcome and survival in the treatment of mUM (metastatic uveal melanoma) with M-PHP (melphalan percutaneous hepatic perfusion)

Akira Wiberg, University of Oxford, Developing a single cell atlas of the median nerve microenvironment in the carpal tunnel

Supporters

The scheme is generously supported by WellcomeMedical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Versus Arthritis, Diabetes UK, Prostate Cancer UK, and the Association of Physicians of Great Britain & Ireland

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