The Wellcome Trust GW4 Clinical Academic Training Programme

We propose to create a Wellcome Trust-funded Clinical Academic Training Programme (GW4-CAT) for medical, veterinary and dental trainees across three members of the well-established and successful GW4 Alliance of research-intensive universities: Bristol, Cardiff, and Exeter. Based on our collective experience, we will address the following goals: - Recruit and retain trainees from diverse disciplines, backgrounds and clinical specialties across medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences; - Support and encourage trainees to make bold choices with access to cutting edge research environments that will stretch them intellectually and practically exploiting environments that have not ‘traditionally’ been accessed by clinical doctoral trainees; - Provide exemplary doctoral and post-doctoral support through linked academic clinical lectureships and mentorship, building a run-through programme to nurture our best graduates so that they are most effectively positioned to win externally-funded post-doctoral fellowships. GW4-CAT will support trainees for almost a decade from pre-PhD through to research independence, provide demonstrable impact on career progression, resilience and ensure significant achievement at more senior levels and independent senior clinical academic positions. Finally, we will use the opportunity provided by GW4-CAT to catalyse the creation of a ‘Centre of Excellence for Clinical Academic Training’ covering the southwest of the UK.