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Strategic Aim Four - Capacity

The MRC has an important national role in training future research leaders across a range of basic science and clinical disciplines. We will continue to work with a range of partners to identify and respond to national gaps in strategic biomedical research skills, to continue our tradition of supporting the UK’s most talented individuals at critical stages of their research careers and to seek novel ways of enabling career research scientists to flourish.

Interdisciplinary research and training lead to new research opportunities and drive innovation. Maintaining a cadre of highly-skilled researchers in the UK is essential for the innovative research that increases our understanding of health, disease and treatments. A skilled research workforce is also essential if the UK is to be the preferred country for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and devices industries to undertake pre-clinical and clinical research.

Objective

To strengthen and sustain a skilled research workforce through targeted support for excellent training and the development of world-class research leaders.

Now

In the financial year 2007/08, the MRC spent about 14 per cent of the MRC grant-in-aid on fellowships, and has a variety of schemes and initiatives which aim to boost capacity, especially in strategic areas. In December 2007, the MRC’s Council agreed to increase the research careers budget. This included a rise in junior and intermediate clinical awards and PhD capacity-building studentships. Capacity-building schemes for 2008/10 are based on four broad skill-sets that are consistent with the industry identified priorities and those of the MRC’s research boards. These are physiology, toxicology and drug safety; advanced Masters and capacity development PhD studentships; methodology, bioinformatics and public health scientist fellowships; and health economic fellowships.

  • We increased our provision for advanced Masters course places and capacity-building PhD studentships in four key skills areas: mathematics and statistics applied to biomedicine, biomedical imaging, in vivo skills and stem cell biology. We also increased the provision for industrial PhD studentships.
  • The Skills Gap Awards Scheme, designed in response to rapid changes in the UK and global economies, aims to ensure that we develop high-quality scientific and research support skills.
  • As part of the MRC’s continuing commitment to developing research methodologies, we launched a new postdoctoral scheme in this area in 2008/09. It reshaped the health of the public scheme in the form of a new population health sciences fellowship.

Future

Using our resources optimally, we aim to support excellent individuals and invest in areas that have the most potential to deliver results for human health.

  • We aim to assess how effective our existing capacity building schemes are in addressing strategic skills gaps, and to determine how we can strengthen the evidence that underlies prioritisation of training needs. We also aim to work with our higher education institution (HEI) partners.
  • We will help our HEI partners to attract, train and develop outstanding doctoral trainees in excellent research and training environments.
  • We aim to build capacity in research methodologies and in strategic skills that we and our partners together identify as critical for the UK.
  • We will train and sustain the careers of the future research leaders.

How

  • We will respond to needs identified by the MRC’s research boards by prioritising strategic areas as part of a refreshed skills and careers strategy.
  • We will promote the development of high-quality training environments through our doctoral training schemes.
  • We will monitor the quality and uptake of our enhanced capacity-building schemes, further shaping and balancing priorities in response to evidence of gaps in provision.
  • We will provide skills training and information about career tracks for technologists in instrumentation, bioinformatics and data management.
  • We will also invest in clinical research training. MRC fellowships are highly sought after by clinicians of exceptional ability seeking a demanding and rewarding research experience at various stages of their careers.
  • To strengthen networking among our students and junior fellows, the MRC will work with research organisations to launch a pilot set of strategic skills-oriented summer schools. We will also consult on the potential value and form of regionally-based early trainee research networks that bring together the diverse range of trainees supported by the MRC.
  • We aim to invest in the development of global health research capacity among UK health researchers, to ensure that there are opportunities to train future leading scientists for work in this field.