The Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT)-Plus Programme

ECAT-Plus aims to extend the successful ECAT (Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track) Wellcome Trust Clinical PhD programme in Edinburgh and to increase trainee numbers from 5 to 7 annually. The key aims of this application are to increase diversity, maintain momentum and increase capacity in clinical academic training. Our key goals are to: 1. Develop a programme to encourage and support increased diversity and inclusion in the academic workforce, addressing recruitment into academic training but also achieving equivalent retention and achievement, especially with regard to gender. 2. Address the challenge of maintaining research momentum post-PhD through targeted support. We have identified the postdoctoral period and return to clinical training as requiring focus on mentorship and on award of targeted research money distributed through a Research Maintenance Fund. 3. Increase capacity in veterinary training to accommodate high demand from excellent candidates, continuing to recruit vets and medics using the same criteria and training them within a single academic cohort. 4. Increase overall capacity of the scheme by 2 trainees annually to compensate for loss of response-mode Wellcome Fellowships and to achieve cohort sizes appropriate for a diverse workforce with variable speeds of career progression.