Funding opportunity

Pre-announcement: Regional accounts for clinical researchers

• Opportunity status: Upcoming
• Funders: Medical Research Council (MRC)
• Funding type: Grant
• Total fund: £6,000,000
• Publication date: 26 August 2025
• Opening date: 14 October 2025 9:00am UK time
• Closing date: 18 December 2025 4:00pm UK time

Applications must be from partnerships or consortia of eligible UK research organisations (ROs).

Regional accounts for clinical researchers is a £6 million trial initiative to address gaps in support for clinical researchers at critical career pinch points.

Funding up to four years will be provided at 100% full economic cost (FEC) to successful regional consortia spanning medical schools, institutions and NHS trusts. These consortia will have the flexibility to identify and fund clinical researchers at key career points, while providing support to enable their longer-term success.

This is a pre-announcement and the information may change.

The funding opportunity opens 14 October 2025. More information will be available on this page then.

Who can apply

To lead a project, you must be based at an eligible organisation. Check if your organisation is eligible.

Applications must be from partnerships or consortia of eligible UK ROs. There is no maximum limit on the number of partners. An eligible RO cannot be in multiple regional accounts for clinical researchers partnerships for this funding opportunity and therefore must only submit one application.

The partnership shall have an application lead, who will be responsible for submitting the completed application by the advertised funding opportunity deadline.

What we're looking for

Regional Accounts for Clinical Researchers (RACR) will provide support to clinical researchers via multi-institutional partnerships between universities and NHS trusts. The initiative was designed in response to the Clinical researchers in the UK: reversing the decline report recommendations to address identified gaps in support for clinical researchers at the following critical career pinch points:

• the immediate postdoctoral period, enabling research activity while completing clinical training
• research re-entry, enabling clinicians to re-enter research and develop proposals for follow-on support

Successful RACR applications should demonstrate:

• direct alignment with Medical Research Council (MRC) core remit of biomedical discovery and early translation research
• a strong regional partnership or clear plans to develop one, involving relevant institutions and NHS trusts including, where appropriate, collaborations between newer and long-established medical schools
• targeted plans to address the identified career pinch points of post-PhD transition, research re-entry, or both
• complementarity with existing local and regional initiatives, with clear strategies to enhance, expand and, where necessary, develop new offers across the regional partnership
• robust management and governance plans, incorporating best practice in equality, diversity and inclusion, to ensure transparent allocation and distribution of funds across partnering organisations to multiple individuals
• strong support for individual clinical researchers, with clear plans to nurture individuals and enable their future career progression across academic and NHS settings
• a commitment to sharing best practice, both within the partnership and the wider community

Applications for an RACR must be led by a single eligible research organisation, but should be collaborative in nature and co-created within the consortium, spanning relevant academic institutions, medical schools and NHS trusts. Wider partnerships with local charities, industry, SMEs and digital technology companies are encouraged to support mobility opportunities for clinical researchers.

It is anticipated that four to six RACR awards, each lasting up to four years, will be made as part of this pilot phase. Each award will undergo a midterm review to assess progress and determine the case for releasing subsequent funding for the remainder of the award period.

How to apply

We are running this funding opportunity on the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service, so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system. We will publish full details on how to apply when the funding opportunity opens.

How we will assess your application

Assessment process

Panel

We will invite experts to assess the quality of your application. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview after which the panel will make a funding recommendation.

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Assessment areas

The full criteria for assessment will be published when the full application funding opportunity opens.

Contact details

Get help with your application

If you have a question and the answers aren’t provided on this page

The helpdesk is committed to helping users of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service as effectively and as quickly as possible. In order to manage cases at peak volume times, the helpdesk will triage and prioritise those queries with an imminent opportunity deadline or a technical issue. Enquiries raised where information is available on the Funding finder opportunity page and should be understood early in the application process (for example, regarding eligibility, content or remit of a funding opportunity) will not constitute a priority case and will be addressed as soon as possible.

Contact details

For help and advice on costings and writing your application, contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

For questions related to this specific funding opportunity contact fellows@mrc.ukri.org

For general questions related to MRC funding including our funding opportunities and policy email: rfpd@mrc.ukri.org

Any queries regarding the system or the submission of applications through the Funding Service should be directed to the helpdesk.

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm
• Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm

To help us process queries more efficiently, we request that users highlight the council and opportunity name in the subject title of their email query, include the application reference number, and refrain from contacting more than one mailbox at a time.

For further information on submitting an application, read How applicants use the Funding Service.

Additional info

Background

Clinical research drives innovation to make the NHS more sustainable and deliver better outcomes for all by:

• enabling an NHS fit for the future: research-active hospitals consistently deliver better patient outcomes
• kickstarting economic growth: every £1 invested in medical research delivers a further 25p return for every year thereafter

However, the UK is currently not growing its clinical research capability in parallel to an expanding NHS and the increasing clinical need.

During 2024 to 2025, the Office for the Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) convened broad stakeholder ‘Task and Finish’ groups to look at the barriers and opportunities for clinical academic careers in key professional groups, with sub-reports to date defining the required actions for:

• medically qualified researchers: published January 2025
• nurses, midwives and allied health professionals: published July 2025

The Clinical researchers in the UK: reversing the decline report called for funders to identify and address gaps in support for clinical researchers, with new national initiatives and additional support for early phases of the pathway. This initiative was developed to trial a new approach designed in response to these recommendations.

Research and innovation impact

Impact can be defined as the long-term intended or unintended effect research and innovation has on society, economy and the environment; to individuals, organisations, and the wider global population.

Webinar for potential applicants

We will hold a webinar to provide more information about the funding opportunity. Further information on how to register for the webinar will be shared once the funding opportunity opens.

Research disruption due to COVID-19

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring all partners and networks are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:

• breaks and delays
• disruptive working patterns and conditions
• the loss of ongoing work
• role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic

Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.

Where disruptions have occurred, this can be highlighted within the application, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.