National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIHR) Opportunities

The following opportunities are available to nurses, midwives, allied healthcare professionals, pharmacists, and healthcare scientists from NIHR

The NIHR Senior Investigators cohort 19 is now open for applications from June 24 to September 8, 2025.

Senior Investigators receive a 4-year appointment, funding to support research leadership activities, and opportunities to influence NIHR strategy and mentor emerging researchers.
We are particularly keen to see applications from AHPs, nursing and midwifery, methodology and social care.
We also welcome applications from all institutions to reflect the growing diversity of health and care research leadership. Apply if you are eligible and please forward along to a colleague who could be interested.
Download the communications toolkit, which includes: sample text for use on social media, a short slide summary of the award and some quote cards of current SIs.

Opening in October 2025

Building on NIHR’s Strategic Focus – Strengthening careers for under-represented disciplines and specialisms, we are delighted to announce that the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) Funding Opportunity, opening in October 2025, will be a ring-fenced call dedicated to ‘Research inspired by under-represented disciplines and specialisms to drive transformational changes for patients and the public’.
NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) is seeking to grow a portfolio of applied health and care research programmes with leadership/co-leadership from underrepresented disciplines, specialisms and/or methodologists, that is:

Registered health and care professionals (HCPs), who are not doctors or dentists (i.e., proposals cannot solely be led by doctors or dentists but in alignment with the above, a co-lead arrangement is permitted given the scale and complexity of research programmes).
Allied health professionals.
Research methodologists specifically the following disciplines: medical statistics, health economics, clinical trial design, operational research, modelling, bioinformatics, qualitative research, mixed methods, and epidemiology.

Offers multidisciplinary research teams considerable flexibility to focus on any health and care topics within remit and scope of the NIHR PGfAR programme. We welcome applications with leadership from underrepresented disciplines, specialisms and/or methodologists that present a coherent applied research programme of interrelated, multidisciplinary projects which individually and together produce outputs and outcomes that are likely to realise a transformative step change in the way the health and care services can meet the needs of the UK public.
The amount awarded and the length of the funding period depends on the nature of the proposed work. In recent competitions PGfAR awards attract funding of around £2.0 – £3.5 million across 4 – 6 years.
More details can be found in the PGfAR Funding Opportunity -October 2025 Summary webpage and also the Research Specification with the accompanying supporting information.