The NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) has funds available to support Infrastructure Postdoctoral Bridging Fellowships for internal candidates within the University of Southampton/University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust Partnership.

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Scheme Outline

 

The funds will be used to support the salary of the successful applicant for up to one year, to facilitate applicants submitting for an externally funded fellowship. The expectation is that the award would make applicants competitive for an external personal fellowship application (e.g. MRC, NIHR, Wellcome Trust) relevant to their research experience, which would then support the applicant beyond the funded period.

 

It is expected that the bridging fellowship period will be used to generate data to support external fellowship applications, or to support those awaiting the outcome of an external fellowship application.

 

Within this call, funding is available from our central Infrastructure budget. These funds have been made available for cross-theme collaboration and widen access to Fellowship funding to underserved groups within the Southampton BRC. Applications from people who do not have a cross-theme project or are not from an underserved professional group are still eligible to apply but will not be prioritised.

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To encourage cross-theme collaboration, applicants are encouraged to talk to Theme Leads before making an application. All successful awardees are expected to be active preparing/making external fellowship applications during their award. 

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There is no provision for the cost of consumables or training in the Bridging Fellowships. Please provide details of how these costs will be met in the relevant section of the application form (if applicable). If the applicant has a clinical background, it may be possible to combine this award with clinical commitments/training. However, applicants will need to have secured permission to be released from the appropriate UHS Clinical Division and considered their position beyond the end of BRC support.

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This fellowship round is hosted through central Southampton BRC Infrastructure funds and, therefore, will not be aligned to a particular Theme budget. However, the topic of the planned research application must be aligned with the following BRC Theme research priorities and accompanying SMART Objectives or planned future experimental theme work:​ 

The proposed fellowships must fit within the NIHR and BRC remit, with a particular emphasis on experimental medicine which does not include animal research. The Theme Research Strategy and SMART objectives can be found here.

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Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the Academic Career Development Leads and Theme Leads to discuss their projects before making an application to ensure project alignment.

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Academic Career Development Leads (ACDLs):

• Perioperative and Critical Care: Malcolm West (m.west@soton.ac.uk)

• Nutrition, Lifestyle and Metabolism, and Respiratory and Allery themes: Mark Johnson (m.johnson@soton.ac.uk)

• Microbiology, Immunology and Infection, and Data, Health and Society themes: Franchesca Houghton (f.d.houghton@soton.ac.uk)

 

Theme Leads:

• Data Health and Society: Wendy Hall (wh@ecs.soton.ac.uk)

• Microbiology, Immunology and Infection: Robert C Read (r.c.read@soton.ac.uk) and Saul Faust (s.faust@soton.ac.uk)

• Nutrition Lifestyle and Metabolism: Jonathan Swann (J.Swann@soton.ac.uk) and Keith Godfrey (kmg@mrc.soton.ac.uk)

• Perioperative and Critical Care: Michael Grocott (mike.grocott@soton.ac.uk) and Denny Levett (d.levett@soton.ac.uk)

• Respiratory and Allergy: Graham Roberts (g.c.roberts@soton.ac.uk) and Thomas Wilkinson (t.wilkinson@soton.ac.uk)

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Application Criteria

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Candidates whose proposed research programmes align with the scientific programmes of the BRC are eligible to apply for these bridging funds.

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Applicants must already hold an MD / PhD or have recently submitted their doctoral thesis (in this case appointment is subject to successful award).  

 

To apply, please send the following to BRC-applications@uhs.nhs.uk by 12:00, Friday 30th January 2026:

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• Postdoctoral Bridging Fellowship application form with all sections completed and word limits respected. Please use this version of the form. The timeline/GANTT chart can be submitted as a separate document if necessary.

 

• A summary CV (max two sides of A4, size 11 font). The CV should contain basic information about education, employment history, current source of funding, job plan and academic responsibilities, as well as a list of the most relevant publications from the last five years.

 

• A lay English summary of your research proposal and PPIE/EDI section (one side of A4) to be reviewed by PPIE members of the panel to ensure patient and public perspectives are considered in the selection process.

 

Applicants will be notified of outcomes by the end of February 2026.

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For further information, please contact Malcolm West at M.West@soton.ac.uk.​

 

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