NIHR ARC South London Applied Research Leadership Academy

Participants will be supported to be more able to:

1. Reflect on their personal vision for their research career
2. Develop a deeper understanding of their research leadership qualities
3. Develop skills to design, and deliver research projects and impact
4. Understand the value of stepping up for leadership opportunities
5. Understand how to strategically lead research at local/national/international levels
6. Understand how to organise, give and receive mentorship/coaching

Elements of the course will include:

1. Research leader’s journeys: successful research leaders will give talks about their journey and career decisions and will host Q&A.
2. Skills training: opportunities to learn how to: cost grant applications, manage research finance, project management, rules about applying for specific funding streams.
3. Leadership qualities development: learn how to build effective collaborations, develop credibility and ensure ethical leadership.
4. Research in the NHS: navigating the challenges, facilitators and systems
5. Driving research quality: the Research Excellence Framework (REF)
6. How to engage diverse and minoritised groups of people in research
7. Your research: route to impact and developing a theory of change
8. Individual mentorship/coaching session – 1 hour (including guidance on how to organise the session with the mentor/ mentee yourself).

Key information:

• Applications to the academy are now open. We particularly encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds. 
• Briefing events will be held in October to provide further information and answer questions (see below).
• Please obtain your line manager's approval for your application. A panel will assess applications in November and those that are approved will be notified before the end of the autumn term.

Public members

We offer this course as a free resource and those who feel they can benefit are very welcome to join. There are no entry requirements for members of the public who attend. We welcome people who have ambitions to become research leaders. Please note - this is not a course in how to do research and there is no expectation for public participants to offer advice on how to manage PPI. Unfortunately, we are unable to fund any costs for PPI participants (e.g to attend the academy or to cover carers’ costs, or travel costs). 

How the programme will be delivered

The programme will be delivered online and will start on 24 January 2024 concluding with an in-person celebration event on 26 June.  The sessions will take place each Wednesday between 1pm – 2pm (excluding half term breaks and Easter). All events will be recorded and shared with the participants. There will be a minimal engagement expectation of 25 hours over the full programme (33 hours). Participants will be asked to complete an evaluation in June 2024.

Apply for a place on the programme

Complete the application form. Applications close on 14 November 2023 at 9am.

Find out more: briefing sessions

We will be holding Q&A briefing sessions if you'd like to find out more about the academy on 19 October and 30 October, both 12-12.30pm. 

• Register for the Q&A session on 19 October
• Register for the Q&A session on 30 October

Read the slides from the briefing sessions. 

The programme 

Read the programme for the Research Leadership Academy.

Register your interest for the 2025 Academy

Register your interest

Feedback from last year's participants

Read the evaluation report

Read the evaluation report from the 2022 cohort.

For information or enquiries

Contact, NIHR ARC South London, Capacity building theme email: arcshortcourses@kcl.ac.uk