Population health scientist fellowship
MRC fellowships provide outstanding scientists with exceptional opportunities to develop their careers, by concentrating on challenging research and gaining the broader experience that is essential to a future leadership role.
The MRC Population Health Scientist fellowship commonly provides three years of support for research and specific training for outstanding postdoctoral researchers and clinical scientists, including specialist trainees, general practitioners, dentists, nurses, midwives and members of the allied health professions.
- The award
- Who can apply?
- Funding provided
- Tenure of award
- Deadlines and submission details
- Other work responsibilities
- Choosing the right scheme for you
- Guidance for applicants
The award
The MRC Population Health Scientist Fellowship is one of a number of qualitative and quantitative schemes supported by the MRC under the Strategic Skills Fellowships banner.
Population health sciences are concerned with the study of social and environmental influences on physical and mental health and well-being, with reference to a range of ‘up-stream’ influences such as early life experiences, the social and economic conditions in which we live and environmental exposures that can affect wellbeing. A key aim is to understand how and why ill-health varies within and between populations and across the life course, and how to improve the health of the public through clinical or public health interventions including those that may be delivered outside conventional health services.
Health of the public research, which falls within this remit, is defined by MRC as “...population-based research into the promotion and maintenance of health, the frequency, burden and causal pathways of ill-health, and the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce or prevent ill-health". Relevant areas of research include the distribution and social patterning of health and well-being, ill health and health related behaviours, social and biological determinants of health and their interaction, the accumulation of risk and health trajectories throughout the life course and across generations, and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of preventive or therapeutic interventions aimed at risk reduction in whole populations.
The MRC is committed to building capacity in public health and population health sciences as a whole. This Fellowship supports research and specific training for 3 years at pre- or post-doctoral entry level. We welcome proposals from applicants with a broad range of research interests, including, and not limited, to the application of the following disciplines to population health research:
- Social, clinical, life course and genetic epidemiology
- Health demography
- Medical sociology
- Health psychology
- Medical anthropology
- Human geography
- *Health economics
- *Biostatistics
*To be appropriate for this scheme, applications should be seeking to apply health economics or biostatics to a population health research question. Applications that seek to develop novel statistical methods or to apply econometric methods to health research more widely should consider the MRC Career development award in biostatistics or the MRC Early career fellowship in economics of health.
This scheme provides support for strategically important skills and seeks to attract the very best early career researchers wishing to acquire formal multidisciplinary research training in a range of the above disciplines (or related disciplines). The prospective fellow’s research project and training environment must enable them to acquire complementary skills and expertise in large-scale quantitative and qualitative study design, data collection and analysis, in order to become independent research scientists.
Who can apply?
Pre-doctoral candidates:
Non-science graduates who do not hold a PhD/DPhil, MD or Masters Degree in a relevant discipline are expected to study for such a qualification within their Fellowship programme of research training.
Medical or dental graduates should be post-registration up to and including specialty registrar (StR) grade or be at the equivalent level in general practice or dentistry. More experienced StR grade applicants will preferably have worked for a period in a department carrying out clinical research.
Nurses, midwives and members of the allied health professions must have completed their professional training and hold a Masters degree, or equivalent postgraduate research-oriented qualification.
If you have started a PhD, you may apply for a Fellowship only if, at the proposed start date, you have not been registered for more than 12 months full-time.
Special emphasis is placed on having a strong, relevant training programme in an excellent research and training environment. Pre-doctoral candidates need to demonstrate interest in interdisciplinary research and the potential for developing a research leadership role in the future.
Post-doctoral candidates:
Science graduate applicants should hold a PhD or DPhil in a relevant discipline or expect to do so by the time they take up the award with no more than four years post PhD research experience at the time of application deadline.
We will also consider applicants who have a research-oriented Masters degree with three or more years of relevant postgraduate experience that can contribute to their development as researchers.
Special emphasis is placed on having a well articulated programme of training and skills development that would allow the Fellow to become an independent research scientist by the end of their award. The Fellow must play a leading role in their project.
Pre- and Post Doctoral candidates:
There are no residential requirements for post-doctoral applicants, although there are some requirements for pre-doctoral applicants. Please refer to the link under 'Guidance for applicants'. If you are invited to interview you will be expected to demonstrate a commitment to the UK research effort in the area of Population Health Sciences beyond the period of the award.
Fellows may be based at UK universities, medical or dental schools, research council institutes and units, charity-funded research centres, or other approved academic institutions.
As part of the MRC’s equal opportunities policy, consideration will be given to applicants who are returning to science following a career break. There are no age limits for any of our schemes and all Fellowships may be held part-time to fit in with domestic responsibilities.
Funding provided
Pre-doctoral candidates:
Full economic costs do not apply to pre-doctoral fellowships. At the pre-doctoral level, the fellowship provides a competitive personal salary up to but not including NHS consultant level. Please note that salary requests should be appropriate for a training fellowship. The award also provides a research training support grant of up to £15,000 per year. This may cover such items as consumables, PhD fees, equipment, conference travel, and other course fees; however, each item must be separately costed and justified. Where animals are requested for the project, funding may be sought separately from the research training support grant. If the fellowship includes an element of research training outside the UK, overseas travel to the training centre and living allowances may also be requested separately from the research training support grant.
If you have started a PhD and you have not been registered for more than 12 months full-time you must seek standard pre-doctoral funding. Payment of full economic costs is conditional on the receipt of your PhD, and any FEC for the post-doctoral period of the award should be claimed at the end of the fellowship. Please note it is your responsibility to provide documentary evidence of the PhD to support any such claim. Pre-doctoral salaries will be paid up to, but not including, NHS consultant level and should be appropriate for a training fellowship.
Postdoctoral candidates:
At the postdoctoral level, the award provides the fellow’s competitive salary, research training costs (in and/or outside the UK), research consumables expenses, travel costs and capital equipment appropriate for the research project, and all other relevant costs under Full Economic Costs (FEC). The population health scientist fellowship is primarily intended to support the training and development of the fellow. Research staff fees and the costs of collecting or generating substantial primary data are not normally allowed, unless approved exceptionally by the MRC office before submission.
Pre- and Post Doctoral candidates:
You should consider how additional funding available for a placement elsewhere in the UK or abroad, or in industry, could accelerate your development towards research leadership - and help you fulfil your research ambitions. The research fellowship provides the opportunity to spend time in an overseas research centre, a second UK research centre or UK industrial centre. The aim is to provide a concentrated period of training that could not be achieved as effectively within the academic host institution. We would normally support with justification one visit, which may be no longer than 12 months. However, the Panel may agree to requests for visits to more than one centre on the grounds of training needs. These should not be simply networking visits. You should be prepared at interview to discuss in detail any visits proposed.
Supervisor’s fees should be kept to minimum unless there is a specific training required and they will be closely scrutinised. When resources are needed for access to data and databases, applicants are encouraged to seek institutional commitment to help with the cost.
Tenure of award
An MRC Population health scientist fellowship is usually awarded for three years. Occasionally, fellows may apply for a period of up to four years. However, a maximum duration of four years is not standard and requests for support for four years will need to be fully justified.
Deadlines and submission details
This fellowship competition is held once a year. There is no need to submit an outline application. Please see the schedule and deadlines for fellowships web page for closing dates.
Please submit your completed application by 4pm on the advertised closing date using the Je-S application system.
Other work responsibilities
Fellows may spend up to six hours a week during the fellowship on teaching, demonstrating or supervising research staff. The payment for this work may be retained in full if this is in accordance with the host institution’s normal policy. However, fellows may not apply for other research grant funding during the course of their fellowship.
The MRC recognises the challenges faced by clinicians in combining research training with the demands of a clinical career. We therefore try to operate the scheme as flexibly as possible, allowing up to 20 per cent of fellows' time for NHS sessions.
Choosing the right scheme for you
Prospective candidates must target the fellowship scheme most appropriate to the stage of their career and their training and development needs. In particular, they should examine carefully the scope of the other Strategic Skills Fellowship schemes.
These schemes and the population health scientist fellowship will be managed in parallel. MRC may advise applicants to transfer their proposal from one scheme to another where appropriate.
Candidates who wish to submit a postdoctoral medical/social science interdisciplinary fellowship application should highlight this in their proposal title and at the beginning of the Case for Support. The MRC and ESRC will collaborate to jointly assess and fund eligible interdisciplinary applications under an extension of the cross-council funding agreement. Any jointly funded fellowships will be offered under the standard MRC terms and conditions.
Guidance for applicants
- Fellowship Application Guidance [PDF]
- Current scientific priority areas
- Deadlines for applications
- Assessment criteria
- Fellowship terms and conditions
- Residence eligibility requirements
For further information please refer to our contacts page.
