Opportunities Update

Funding: Neurosciences and mental health research grantSeptember

04/09/2025 4:00 pm Medical Research Council Early career; Post-doctoral; Open - 20 days to go

This supports research projects focused on neurosciences and mental health. The aim is to transform the understanding of physiology and behaviour of the human nervous system throughout the life course in health, illness, as well as how to treat and prevent disorders of the brain. The scope includes the following areas:

neurodegeneration;
clinical neurology and neuroinflammation;
mental health;
addictions and substance misuse;
behavioural and learning disorders including autism;
cognitive and behavioural neuroscience and cognitive systems;
sensory neuroscience including vision and hearing;
neurobiology and neurophysiology;
underpinning support, such as neuroimaging; technology, brain banking and neuroinformatics.

MRC applicant led research grants: are suitable for focused short or long-term research projects; can support method development; can support development and continuation of research infrastructures and resources specifically relevant to the needs of our research communities, that cannot be supported through other routes; and may involve more than one research group or organisation

Eligibility

To lead a project, you must be based at an eligible organisation.

Neurosciences and mental health: new investigator fundingSeptember

04/09/2025 4:00 pm Medical Research Council Early career; Open - 20 days to go

New investigator grants support individuals who have not previously led a research team or been awarded a substantial grant as fellow or project lead (formally known as principal investigator). Apply for funding to research neurosciences and mental health and take the next step towards becoming an independent researcher. You must have the skills and experience to ‘transition to independence’ and the support of a host research organisation eligible for Medical Research Council (MRC) funding.

There is no limit to the funding you can apply for, but the typical full economic cost of a project is under £1 million. MRC will usually fund 80% of the full economic cost. This funding usually lasts three years and covers up to 50% of your salary.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply as a new investigator you must:

have research organisation support
show that your skills and experience match those in the ‘transition to independence’ stage of the MRC applicant skills and experience table
use this grant to support your long-term career goals and chosen career route
demonstrate you are the sole intellectual leader of the application and the proposed work
focus your application within the research area of neurosciences and mental health

Funding: NIHR Senior Investigator awardSeptember

08/09/2025 1:00 pm NIHR Post-doctoral; Open - 24 days to go

The NIHR Senior Investigator award recognises the most prominent and prestigious researchers of applied health and social care. Senior Investigators help shape the direction of health, social care and public health research in the UK.

Senior Investigators will receive a discretionary award of £15,000 per year for 4 years to fund activities that support their research.

Applications for our NIHR Senior Investigator award will now be open to researchers from Northern Ireland. We plan to appoint up to 2 Senior Investigators from Northern Ireland as part of this cohort. In addition, Senior researchers in England (NIHR Senior Investigators), Scotland (NHS Research Scotland Network Leads) and Wales (Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leaders) will now be brought together as a community of Senior Investigators.

As part of the Senior Investigator community, they:

influence national research plans
act as mentors and role models for early-career researchers
lead impactful health, and social care and public health research
act as ambassadors across health, social care and public health systems
help develop research capacity and talent in underrepresented groups, specialities and areas of geography

Eligibility

For the first time, senior researchers from Northern Ireland will also be able to apply for the NIHR Senior Investigator award.

To apply, you should be a leading researcher funded by the NIHR and based in England. To be eligible, you must:

have made a substantial contribution to the NIHR with ongoing contribution planned
have part or all your salary funded as a research cost from the NIHR
have current, active and eligible NIHR funding at the time of application, which must extend beyond 30 June 2026
be employed by an organisation based in England
be undertaking high-quality and internationally leading applied health, public health or social care research

You are eligible to apply if you are an NIHR Research Professor or a Global Health Research Professor and your term ends before 1 April 2026, as long as you meet the other eligibility criteria.

Webinar: 2026 MQ Fellows announcementSeptember

15/09/2025 2:00 pm → 15/09/2025 3:00 pm MQ Mental Health Research Early career; Starts in 31 days

Online

MQ Mental Health Research are hosting a webinar to announce the opening of their MQ Fellowships 2026.

The MQ Fellowships are grants of up to £225,000 across three years, for mental health researchers exploring specific areas of mental health. They are particularly interested in supporting high-calibre research in the following areas, this year:

- Children & young peoples mental health
- Eating disorders
- Preventing premature mortality associated with SMIs

The free webinar gives you the chance to ask questions and find out more about the grants.

Eligibility

The MQ Fellowship awards support early career researchers (at least 5 years post PhD or equicvilant doctorate) who wish to establish their independence.

The onus is on applicants to demonstrate that they are at the appropriate career stage.

They must:

have a PhD, DPhil, DClinPsy, MBBS, MD or equivalent
have accumulated 3-7 years whole-time-equivalent research experience, equivalent in nature to postdoctoral research
be able to show that this award will help to establish independence relative to current position
further criteria applies

Workshop: NIHR Fellowship Application Day 2025September

17/09/2025 9:15 am → 17/09/2025 3:00 pm NIHR Research Support Service Doctoral; Early career; Post-doctoral; Starts in 33 days

Online

Applying for a research fellowship is competitive! This free event gives you the information you need to improve the quality of their application, making sure it is focused on what NIHR and their reviewers are looking for. The Fellowship Application Day aims to prepare applicants who are intending to apply in the next year to the new NIHR research career development funding programmes, specifically the Doctoral and Postdoctoral Awards. (This funding replaces the former Doctoral and Advanced Fellowship Programme, the HEE-NIHR Integrated Clinical and Practitioner Academic Programme and the NIHR Local Authority Academic Fellowship Programme.)

Eligibility

This event focuses on supporting those wishing to apply for doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships.

Funded research placement with Inclusion Service at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation TrustSeptember

19/09/2025 5:00 pm Inclusion Service at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Doctoral; Post-doctoral; Open - 35 days to go

Time-released, or Long-acting Buprenorphine/Budival is used for the treatment of addiction to opioids. This project will explore staff attitudes towards and recipients’ experience of psychosocial support while being considered for and receiving Buvidal. The aim will be to generate an understanding of what the psychosocial assessment and intervention package should be to support people to successfully achieve their goals. The project will involve (i) secondary qualitative analysis of data already collected for the evaluation and (ii) a rapid scoping review of the existing literature in the area. Dependent on project timings, there may be an opportunity for the researcher to undertake additional qualitative interviews, with associated coding and thematic analysis.

A bespoke support programme will be developed to meet the successful applicant’s research needs and ambitions, exposing them to different aspects of the research process, a range of projects and various partners including people with lived experience of addiction.

Eligibility

Please note you must be employed by a HEI organisation for the duration of the placement. This placement is effectively a secondment from your current role, during which you would be hosted by MPFT.

If you have any queries relating to this role please contact Tim Lewington on Tim.Lewington@mpft.nhs.uk

If you are interested in this role, please see further details in this document, and return the supporting statement and CV to helen.duffy@mpft.nhs.uk via email by 19 September 2025, 5pm.

Funding: Arts, Health and Wellbeing Lottery FundingOctober

01/10/2025 1:00 pm Arts Council of Wales Post-doctoral; Open - 47 days to go

The aim of this programme is to support partnerships from across the arts, health, social care and third sectors to provide high-quality creative projects that deliver health and wellbeing benefits for the people of Wales.

The Arts Health and Wellbeing Fund is open to partnership bids from across the arts, health, social care, nature, environmental and third sectors. Between £500 to £50,000 is available for funding but over £50,000 is available in rare and exceptional cases. Projects that address one or more of the following health challenges and priorities are eligible to apply:

Nature – projects that aim to improve people’s health and wellbeing by increasing their connection with nature through the arts;
Mental health – including tackling loneliness, social isolation and social prescribing schemes that aim to build resilience and support better mental health;
Health inequalities – Arts projects designed to address health inequalities by bringing health and wellbeing benefits to people from more diverse and under-represented backgrounds;
Physical health and wellbeing – arts projects that support improved physical health or keep people physically active ;
Staff wellbeing – within the healthcare and/or arts workforce.

Eligibility

Applications should be developed by a partnership/consortium of organisations and artists and must include both a health and arts partner (as well as a nature partner if your project focuses on Arts, Health & Nature). One of the partners will need to assume the lead, submitting the application and acting as the accountable body.

MHP Research Summit ECR Workshop 2025October

09/10/2025 12:00 pm → 09/10/2025 5:00 pm Mental Health Platform Early career; Starts in 55 days

Edinburgh Futures Institute, The University of Edinburgh

This workshop, part of DATAMIND and MQ’s ongoing series on mental health data science, will be aimed at Early Career Researchers and will involve a PPIE aspect.

MHP Research Summit 2025October

10/10/2025 8:30 am → 10/10/2025 5:00 pm Mental Health Platform Any; Starts in 56 days

Playfair Library, Edinburgh

The Mental Health Platform Research Summit is an annual event for researchers, focusing on severe mental illness (SMI).In partnership with MQ, the summit connects researchers, clinicians, ECRs, people with lived experience of SMI and external partners. Leading researchers in the field share the latest developments and identify ways to collaborate on future projects. It provides a dedicated platform to share current research into the complex biological, psychological, and social dimensions of conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, diagnoses related to complex emotions, and depression.

As part of our commitment to transforming outcomes for people affected by SMI, the event brings together expertise from across different disciplines. The MHP Research Summit is also a place for the next generation of mental health researchers to present their work, connect with peers, and learn from leading experts in the field.

The MHP Research Summit is in-person. However, we aim to have at least one session live-streamed. More information about this option will be available before the event.

Eligibility

The MHP Research Summit is an event for scientists, clinicians and health care professionals to network and share the latest advances in research into severe mental illness. While it is not a public event, we will be sharing stories and research highlights from the day through our website and social media.

Funding call: What are the social and mental wellbeing benefits of intergenerational practices in care homes and schools?November

27/11/2025 1:00 pm NIHR Post-doctoral; Open - 104 days to go

The NIHR’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme invites applications for the following research question: What are the social and mental wellbeing benefits of intergenerational practices in care homes and schools?

Target group: Residents in care homes and children in primary education (applicants are invited to specify and justify age brackets used for each group; applicants should specify whether or not exclusion criteria will include residents with dementia)

Intervention: Intergenerational Practice, bringing the care home residents and primary school students together for group activities (applicants are invited to specify and justify the design of the intergenerational programme used, ensuring there is PPI input in the development, and should include a relevant plan for safeguarding in their application)

Comparators: Care homes and/or schools running the same activities with no intergenerational links

Important outcomes:

children – happiness with a measure of feeling of isolation, confidence to engage with others of a different or same generation, attitudes towards older people
care home residents – quality of life, happiness with a measure of feeling of isolation, confidence to engage with others of a different or same generation, attitudes towards younger people
care providers – mental health, attitudes towards both target groups

Other outcomes:

children – adverse events resulting from the intervention
care home residents – adverse events resulting from the intervention
care providers – financial implications of the intervention, job satisfaction/retention

Funding: Greenspace and natural environmentsDecember

09/12/2025 1:00 pm NIHR Early career; Post-doctoral; Open - 116 days to go

The NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Programme is looking to fund research which evaluates the health impacts of the interventions which change access to green and blue space. This is a 2-stage funding opportunity. To apply for the first stage you should submit an outline application. If invited to the second stage, you will then need to complete a full application.

Research question: What are the health impacts of the interventions which change access to green and blue space?

Funding: Men’s Mental HealthApril

21/04/2026 1:00 pm NIHR Early career; Post-doctoral; Open - 249 days to go

The NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Programme is looking to fund research which evaluates the health and health inequality impacts of interventions aimed at promoting good mental health or preventing poor mental health among men. This is a 2-stage funding opportunity. To apply for the first stage you should submit an outline application. If invited to the second stage, you will then need to complete a full application

Research question: What are the health and health inequality impacts of interventions aimed at promoting good mental health or preventing poor mental health among men?

Eligibility

The PHR programme focuses on funding health-related research into services that:

are not provided or funded by the NHS
can be rolled out on a large scale
have potential to create sustainable, population-level changes

It is particularly interested in studies that focus on the wider determinants of health and will generally ask for health-related outcome measures.

It does not fund:

studies of specific disease or condition
treatments research where primary outcomes are social care outcomes – see our Research programme for Social Care
the development of new websites, apps, or software

Funding Call: Veterans’ healthApril

21/04/2026 1:00 pm NIHR Post-doctoral; Open - 249 days to go

The NIHR’s Public Health Research (PHR) Programme is looking to fund research which evaluates the effects of interventions on the mental, physical, or both aspects of Veterans’ health. This is a 2-stage funding opportunity. To apply for the first stage you should submit an outline application. If invited to the second stage, you will then need to complete a full application.

You must demonstrate a strong grasp of the existing evidence base, highlight critical research gaps, and articulate how your study will address these deficiencies. Additionally, where relevant, you should integrate diverse sources of existing evidence to ensure a comprehensive approach.

Research Question: What are the effects of interventions on the mental, physical, or both aspects of Veterans’ health?

Parent Carer Research Network
MHID and the Charlie Waller Trust Any; Open-ended
The Parent Carer Research Network (PCRN) was set up to champion the voices of parents and carers in children and young people’s mental health research. It connects researchers with interested parents and carers who have lived experience with children and young people’s mental health and would like to become involved in research.

If you are a mental health or addiction researcher, you are able to send any opportunities to be reviewed and featured in the PCRN’s next newsletter. The network has been founded by parents with lived experience, the Charlie Waller Trust, and research teams at the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford.

The PCRN is a useful way to establish collaborative relationships, incorporate lived experience to your research and develop safe, inclusive and accessible research. Working with the PCRN provides support in developing your project and exploring funding sources, support with your application to work with the network and resources on good practice e.g. advice around facilitation and communication with parents and carers.

📧 You can also email the team at parentcarerresearchnetwork@psych.ox.ac.uk if you’d like to have a chat or discuss a potential opportunity

Eligibility

The opportunities (research or PPI) must be targeted to parents or carers, and there are a few steps you’ll need to carry out. They have also created a Guide for Researchers, containing important points to consider and a checklist summary of key reminders.

Funding call: Courses and conferences for early career researchers
NIHR MH-TRC Mission Doctoral; Early career; Pre-doctoral; Open-ended
The NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration Mission (MH-TRC Mission) Capacity Development workstream presents an exciting opportunity for early career researchers linked to the MH-TRC Mission. To support your training and development we are launching a rolling funding call for fees and travel expenses to enable attendance at relevant courses and conferences. Applications are also welcome from PhD candidates seeking co-funding for PhD tuition fees. You can apply for funding covering up to 50% of PhD tuition fees (up to £15,000) provided you have already secured the rest of the funding.

We ask you to complete an application form below with details of the funding you require and how the PhD/course/conference relates to the objectives of the MH-TRC Mission.

Successful applicants must use the best value for money method of travel. Accommodation and subsistence (meals, beverages and limited incidental costs) should be in line with value for money principles, and claimants should not benefit.

All applications will be reviewed and applicants notified of the outcome on a monthly basis. We intend to have this rolling funding call open until 31 October 2027.

Eligibility

Funding requests must be well aligned with Mission objectives.

Reviewer Development Scheme
NIHR Early career; Open-ended
An opportunity to hone your skills in peer reviewing and to review current research. Participants will receive constructive feedback on their reviews as well as receiving insights into how other experienced reviewers have approached pieces.

Membership of the scheme lasts for 5 years, or until participants have completed 5 reviews in the scheme/have been recruited as a Committee Member Development Scheme participant – whichever comes first. You may leave the scheme at any time or transfer to the NIHR’s community of reviewers as a peer reviewer once you feel ready.

Eligibility

You must be close to completing your PhD or within 10 years of completing your PhD, and have not yet held a grant as Lead Applicant (excluding fellowships) of over £100,000.

The Scheme is also open to all UK Speciality Registrars, Advanced Clinical Practitioners and Nurses and Midwives on Band 6 or above.

Associate Principal Investigator (PI) Scheme
NIHR Early career; Open-ended
The Associate Principal Investigator Scheme aims to develop health and care professionals to become the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the future

Eligibility

The scheme is open to any health and care professional willing to make a significant contribution to the conduct and delivery of a study at a local level over a period of six months.

All of the latest and upcoming funding and career development opportunities for mental health and addiction researchers.

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Funded research placement with Inclusion Service at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation TrustSeptember

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Associate Principal Investigator (PI) Scheme NIHR Early career; Open-endedThe Associate Principal Investigator Scheme aims to develop health and care professionals to become the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the future

Eligibility

Associate Principal Investigator (PI) Scheme
NIHR Early career; Open-ended
The Associate Principal Investigator Scheme aims to develop health and care professionals to become the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the future